Unlocking Your Coaching Business’ Potential With Joanna Lott: Her Secrets to Building a Business You Adore

Ever found yourself daydreaming about a job that promises more than just a paycheck; one that fulfils you both professionally and personally, while empowering others to do the same? That’s exactly what Joanna Lott did - moving from a traditional HR role into becoming a coach - and helping other aspiring coaches do the same. In this podcast episode, I had the absolute joy of chatting with Joanna and unwrapping her journey into entrepreneurship. Her story resonates with all of us, spinning the plates of parenthood and our professional lives.

Joanna’s magic doesn’t just stop at coaching; it’s about utter transformation. Dive into our chat, and you’ll get a front-row seat to how a leap into professional coaching qualifications can flip your world upside down - in the best way possible. We wander off the beaten corporate path and explore how these coaching skills have seeped into family life. Joanna lays bare the emotional rollercoaster of birthing a business and tackling her identity crisis and vulnerabilities head-on - and the secrets to making your coaching business a huge success.

And we didn’t stop there; if you're thinking of becoming a coach - or want to take your coaching business to the next level, Joanna gives us a sneak peek into her six-month coaching mentorship programme, detailing why structured training is so important in an unregulated industry such as coaching in giving you the edge against your competitors.

Whether you’re a coaching veteran or merely coach-curious, this episode is a goldmine of insights on cultivating a successful coaching practice.  Don’t miss out on the gems dropped in this episode!

🔗 And hey, if you're vibing with what you hear, why not connect with me, Elizabeth Willetts, on LinkedIn for more tales of women rocking the business world while navigating parenting? Grab your preferred brew, settle in, and let's get inspired to chase those dreams with a little nudge from Joanna’s journey. Subscribe now, and let’s keep working it like a mum! 💪

Show Links:

Connect with Joanna Lott on LinkedIn

Visit Joanna's Website - Joanna Lott Coaching

Follow Joanna on Instagram

Boost your career with Investing in Women's Career Coaching! Get expert CV, interview, and LinkedIn guidance tailored for all career stages. Navigate transitions, discover strengths, and reach goals with our personalised approach. Book now for your dream job! Use 'workitlikeamum' for a 10% discount.

Transcript

Elizabeth Willetts: 0:01

Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willetts and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life. I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women Job Board and Community. In this show, I'm honoured to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business. They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, their boundaries and balance, the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success. Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money struggles, growth loss, boundaries and balance we cover it all. Think of this as coffee with your mates, mixed with an inspiring TED talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school. So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and make sure you cozy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams, or just survive Mondays. This is the Work it Like a Mum podcast. This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women. Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers. Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you. They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries, ready to find your perfect job? Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity. Now back to the show.

Elizabeth Willetts: 1:55

Hello and welcome to this week's Work it Like a Mum podcast episode. Today I'm delighted because I'm going to be chatting with Joanna Lott, who is a business coach for other coaches and she teaches them how to build brilliant businesses that are profitable, that bring them joy, because Joanna has been there and done that and grown her own coaching business and is now helping others to do the same. So thank you so much, joanna, for joining me today. It's such a pleasure to chat with you and learn more about your business, about coaching, and just learn more about you and your life as well. Thank you, liz, excited to talk. It's so exciting. It's a coaching. It does feel quite a new-ish sort of thing. I don't know how. You know. I suppose there's always been probably coaches and mentors, but it's definitely becoming more mainstream as a career choice and a career option for people. What sort of people do you become coaches?

Joanna Lott: 2:52

I think lots of HR professionals I used to work in HR so I definitely did but lots of people transition because I think they go into HR wanting to have that people aspect. That's the whole point of HR. And then I think you get sometimes a bit bombarded by things that don't support the staff and you know the disciplinaries or the policies and all other things. So I think eventually lots of HR professionals then think I want to get back to why I loved this work, which was, you know, helping people to fulfill their potential. So that's one type of person, but obviously anyone can become a coach, but that's definitely one trend I've certainly seen in the clients that I work with.

Elizabeth Willetts: 3:33

When did you first sort of become aware of coaching as a career?

Joanna Lott: 3:37

I was actually super lucky that basically, when I had to quit my job to because my daughter was starting school and I couldn't get to and from my HR job. So what options were there? The only ones I knew were to get a low paid admin job would allow home working or to work in a school, which is just not my thing. I just want to have a little break. So I went for the low paid admin work, which was all work from home and fortunately it was in a coach training organisation. So I am so lucky that Stroke of Luck, came my way and was a bit more convoluted story than that. So anyway, so I took this low paid job and then I realised I just couldn't quit my HR job for this job that was paying like £10 an hour. So I actually then went back to the coach training organisation and said I'm really sorry, I know. I said I was going to take your job, but I just can't take the big pay cut. You know I was quitting a really good, steady job. So he said the owner of the coach training organisation do you want to retain your HR job and do this in the evenings in return for the coach training qualification? That was about £4,000 to do this coach training qualification. I'd said to him I'm really sorry I can't accept this role. What attracted me was that I love the sound of coaching. It's the sort of thing I'm really into. Then he came back with that counter-offer of okay, how about you work for me and train to become a coach? I was super lucky, although it did take me an entire year of slogging my guts out in the evenings doing his admin to pay the £4,000. I wish I'd had just paid up.

Joanna Lott: 5:17

Obviously, I had my main job. I had a one-year-old and a three-year-old yeah, you were busy. I had another job. I also took a school. You didn't go to school. I have an a type job. I had three jobs and two kids and learning to become a coach all at the same time. It was exhausting but fortunately it led me to where I am now. I'm grateful.

Elizabeth Willetts: 5:41

Did you ever hear about coaching before you applied for the admin job there?

Joanna Lott: 5:45

I've heard of it, but I thought it was this elusive thing. What is this that goes on helping people fulfill their potential. I had never been coached for sure. My organisation didn't have a coaching culture or anything like that. It was very vague, but not really. I wasn't in the world at all. I'd always loved personal development, I suppose, but that was just more like reading. It wasn't about coaching and I didn't really know anything about coaching at that stage. Was it four years ago now when I took that job in that coach training organisation? Luckily, I got to learn from the people that were being trained at the time. I also got to do my own training and enter this entirely new world that I had no idea about before.

Elizabeth Willetts: 6:33

What was the training like then? What did the training involve?

Joanna Lott: 6:37

It was in person, which was absolutely lovely. I think most things were on Zoom these days, but it was in person. You do lots of practice sessions. Coaching is about asking questions, which sounds really obvious, but it really wasn't obvious to me at the time. I think when you have conversations with people, you just offer advice or you tell them what you know, versus really allow them to explore where their thoughts are taking them. You just practice different types of techniques. There's one called Quarkwaal, which we did, which is you give me your answer and I create a question out of what you just said. Say something.

Elizabeth Willetts: 7:19

Let's go. Oh gosh, I give you an answer. That was something I just said oh gosh.

Joanna Lott: 7:23

I'll start with a question then why did you start your business?

Elizabeth Willetts: 7:26

Yeah, okay, that's fine. Well, I started my business a bit like you because it was really resonating with me. I got majored in London at the end of my attendee leave during the pandemic, couldn't find another part-time job. Every time a recruiter approached me and I said, well, you consider part-time? He said no straight away. I could just see what happened. So many of my friends people just like you where they've had to take a £10 an hour random jobs somewhere that was not related to what they'd studied for or their experience, just in exchange for that flex. So I just thought I want to use my recruitment experience to help people see that they're. I know those jobs have a place and, to be honest, those jobs still are the most popular jobs on my job board. But there are other jobs out there that can offer flex with some brilliant companies as well.

Joanna Lott: 8:11

Amazing. So how have you managed to even to twine your recruitment experience with your new business?

Elizabeth Willetts: 8:17

Yeah, because it is. Obviously it's a job board, so I suppose it is a bit different from recruitment, but I encourage candidates to get in touch with me. I spend a little bit into this and is looking for a flexible role. Do get in touch, because then I will spend time categorising everybody based upon skills and experience, so once a role is added that is suitable, and then reach out to those individuals.

Joanna Lott: 9:45

Yes, exactly, so all you do, all I did there was you mentioned your recruitment experience, so I've just asked you a question about oh okay, so how did you use your recruitment experience to carry forward into your business? So that's Quarqa, one coaching technique. There are loads. Obviously, it's like a nine months a year long programme. It's not something I can teach in a very short podcast episode, but hopefully that's demonstration of just helping you rather than me going oh, wow, yeah, because I used to work in recruitment too. I'm allowing you to continue exploring where your thought pattern was taking you.

Elizabeth Willetts: 10:21

And how does that help people then? How does that help clients? I?

Joanna Lott: 10:25

think it's because generally no one really does that in everyday life. We are just not trained to allow people to explore. We are trained to jump in with our own thoughts, so it can help you to think, oh God, yeah, you could have if we were to continue that conversation, which we haven't but we could have really ignited your mission. You could have got really clear on why you are brilliant for what you do, which will help you to take bigger action than you would have ever taken if you hadn't made the link between your recruitment and your current business, which obviously you have in that particular instance. But sometimes people don't realise. Like for me, I suppose my passion would come from the lack of confidence I used to have to where I am now. But that's not something I would just know without someone really having a conversation with me, of like, why are you so passionate about this? And that's something that people don't generally ask. No one really asks questions. So it's just a great place to really expand your thinking and potential.

Joanna Lott: 11:25

How does coaching differ from counselling? So coaching is looking forwards, whereas counselling is looking backwards is one way of thinking about it, although coaching looks backwards occasionally too, but it's more focused on okay. So now you know why your recruitment experience and your business is so linked. Where can we go from here? Whereas if you were counselling, you might be going okay. So tell me about that recruitment experience. What was it that triggered you? You might be going way more into the past, the deep stuff than and often they don't always go okay. So how can we move forward from here? They just allow you to really explore that past, versus me now saying, okay, great, let's create a plan for how you can launch. Take this next step is basically coaching. We're looking forward and how we can move you forward, whereas some things need more exploration and you're going to stay in that past part for ages because you might have had trauma or lots of like. Really full on, things happened in the past.

Elizabeth Willetts: 12:26

Interesting Because I know in America obviously they're really into counselling and everyone seems to have a counsellor. Do you think everyone?

Joanna Lott: 12:33

needs a coach. I mean, I think so Now I'm having it. Do you have coaching? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've always now, well, for four years, I've never been without a coach. Now, since I discovered coaching, because I'm gutted that I spent 20 years with having no idea that I could do anything I wanted to do and that's what it allows you to do, I think is to have the headspace of like planning, oh my gosh, like what could you do If you could achieve this? What would you do? And when in everyday life does anyone ask you? You know what's your legacy. You want to leave, what's your big goals? You just drift on by, don't you?

Elizabeth Willetts: 13:11

And yeah, I think that's especially true for moms that are like multitasking and looking after other people and it just is so nice I've got a coat Mine I have once for night is that hour Just actually. It's like I think it's a form of self care actually.

Joanna Lott: 13:26

Totally, it so is like you say. Just space to think is underrated. How do you think?

Elizabeth Willetts: 13:31

it? Has it changed? Obviously, doing that qualification and then how to become a coach? Has it changed how you approach personal relationships? Do you think you're, you know, a different mother, a better mother? Do you listen to your children? I don't know. How do you?

Joanna Lott: 13:44

has it changed that I wish it would have changed it a bit more. It's really difficult. I think it's really difficult to put into practice when people are close to you. But you know, obviously some bits have definitely gone through, but yeah, I think sadly not as much as I want. I would love to. Some coaches have really managed to nail that and they are really coachy with their kids. Sadly, I am still working on it. There's being coachy with my kids rather than going stop doing that. Why are you?

Elizabeth Willetts: 14:14

doing that. I get that. I understand. It's, I think, is what my husband is deciding You're job and he's just a recruiter team and I'm trying to give it I'm like I've got 18 years of room experience. He does not want my advice, so I think that's. It is when it's quite, when you're quite close to somebody.

Joanna Lott: 14:28

Yeah, totally it's. It's really hard to say with my husband, like you say, you just wouldn't. You might be able to do a few things to be able to get to help a little bit, but generally I find it really difficult, personally anyway with someone that's close to me, unless you are having that in that conversation and you're not actually really meant to coach without permission. So you are meant to contract with that person, so it's not. You know, you can still use your skills of listening and whatever, but really if you're having a proper coaching session, you're meant to have a conversation about that first. So you did your qualification.

Elizabeth Willetts: 15:03

You finished that and then talk to do what happens. So then did you quit the admin job or yeah, exactly so it was.

Joanna Lott: 15:10

It was really hard to do, so I eventually. So I had three jobs. I had the HR job, the admin job and the school job and then now I was a coach. So I think my first one to go was finally the HR London job. Because they want to be in the office more.

Joanna Lott: 15:25

I couldn't do homeworking, which had been doing up until that point, and then suddenly they just, you know one rule for one we can't do this anymore, we need you in, but otherwise it's a bad example for everybody else. You know the usual thing. So I managed to quit that job. Then eventually I quit the school job because, you know, again low paid and took me so much time. And then eventually I quit the admin job and I felt really guilty and my husband was just like you, just got to do this. So I'm so glad that I finally got the courage, because otherwise I had two days of childcare which I was spending doing someone else's admin when all I wanted to do was build my business. So it was a risk, because then you're literally you know, I think it's the identity shift of like it's okay, I have a job, I'm okay to, I have zero money and this business that is currently.

Elizabeth Willetts: 16:15

Yeah, I see it in very calm. It's nice to be like that. I'd meet the moms at school. You know what did you do and be like I'm still a runner business. At that point it wasn't making any money and you feel a bit of a fraud, don't you?

Joanna Lott: 16:28

Exactly, that's it. So I think it was. I wanted to retain the job, so I felt like I was still earning, I was still a valid, you know person than being like, oh my God, I've got nothing, I'm unemployed is how it felt like when you first start your business and you really haven't got any clients. I really struggled with that identity shift, I think, of feeling like I was unemployed even though I was obviously doing so much to build my business it wasn't bringing in the money, you know. It felt really raw.

Elizabeth Willetts: 16:58

Yeah, so talk to me the early days then about business. How did it look when you first started? I wanted to tell you to get your best paying clients and what was that?

Joanna Lott: 17:06

Yeah, yeah, obviously it's nice having these conversations, isn't it Looking back? So I was doing executive coaching first up and what's the exact coaching?

Elizabeth Willetts: 17:15

Sorry because some people might not know that is oh, yeah, yeah.

Joanna Lott: 17:18

So it's just coaching within organisations, I guess like senior leadership coaching within organisations, to be honest, like there isn't really coaching as coaching, but people like to feel like an executive coach and I had gained the qualification as an executive coach so I wanted to call myself it because it sounds more prestigious. But in all honesty now I've done lots of different coaching. You know we're all people like. These. Executives are not any different than anyone else. I guess they might have more intense challenges or they might be managing a lot of money or a big team, so perhaps it's that different type of conversation you might be having which is the differentiator. But my experience was not always the job, it's managing the kids, it's all the stuff that everyone is doing, not just executives. So I think of it as just coaching really. But yeah, executive coaching is just coaching senior people.

Elizabeth Willetts: 18:13

So how did you mark? Did you got contacts in that space? How did you market yourself initially?

Joanna Lott: 18:18

No, no, I didn't. I had no idea how to market myself and that's probably what led me on to create my business now, because I think, like you, you want to save your former self and I just had no idea what I was in for. You know, you get told in coach training school or online that you could be, you know, getting £500 an hour for a coaching session. So you literally sit there thinking, my gosh, I could just thousands a week from my living room having conversations for people. This would be amazing.

Elizabeth Willetts: 18:49

I know that as well. So now you're like what?

Joanna Lott: 18:52

planet were you on Totally? What planet you have? Where are these people coming from? That is the missing question and you just don't know. You don't even seem to think about that question until you have started and you've been doing it a while and you're like, oh my gosh, you know no one's coming. Where are these people at £500 an hour that are going to pay me for my coaching?

Joanna Lott: 19:13

So it was really hard and I wanted nothing more to do with my former employer time really. But obviously you soon realised that your best contacts are the people you used to know. So I luckily contacted someone at the organisation I used to work with someone I actually didn't know well and she was in a different team and everything altogether. And luckily I just said would you mind having a conversation? I'd love to know literally how to pitch to an organisation, because I've started this business and I've got no idea.

Joanna Lott: 19:42

So I went in with complete transparency and luckily, by the end of that conversation I'd sort of talked to her about what I did and I was so passionate about it. She was like actually, you know what we have got this project for you. This is exactly sounds like what we need. So yeah, I was super lucky that my just vulnerability paid off and similar for other things I've managed to get, I think, lead with that, versus pretending you know what you're doing, which no one likes someone who knows what they're doing. Really, anyway, it's hard to be vulnerable, isn't it?

Joanna Lott: 20:14

I guess I think it is hard, especially when you first start out and you come out and I noticed this a lot with my clients and they are very professional. Everything that they do and their writing and everything is really official. So I do think it does take some learning because, like you say, in the office, I would never have told someone. I had no idea what I was doing. You have to keep that potence up at all times and be that reliable person that everyone knows and trust. So, yeah, it is the complete officer. I think when you start your business and that's the point you really do need people's help and you have to unlearn all of those behaviours that you may have had when you worked in an organisation and start becoming a new version of you.

Elizabeth Willetts: 20:56

You were doing the exact coaching and you were starting to now get clients, which must have helped you in your confidence. Talk us through that. How does the business then evolve then, from you coaching those people to now actually coaching other coaches?

Joanna Lott: 21:12

Yeah, I think again, it's a journey and your niche will change. That's what I always say to my clients too. I realised I actually didn't like executive coaching at all because finally I had left my job, which had kept me stuck for so many years. It was unreal. Then I was talking all day to people who were in the exact same situation as I was. They were at my pre-awareness, which was they had no idea that they could leave this job and do something different.

Joanna Lott: 21:41

Obviously, at this point I'm excited I finally found my potential and my new way and that I can do anything I want. These people were all pretty much worked 20 years in this firm and I need to be a director. It's like, no, no, you might not, maybe you don't want that, but they were so far removed from my new, excited way of being an entrepreneur. I have had the epiphany and they hadn't, I think, just talking about office politics all day and I just thought it just wasn't lighting me up those conversations. Yeah, because I was starting to do a bit of career coaching at this point as well, which I really love, but if I had someone that wanted to start up a business, I was like, oh my God, this is so exciting because you can be anything you want, you can do anything you want. There is no ceiling, there is no boss saying no, you can't do that, sorry, you have to be in this team. I just found that really frustrating, especially with my new excited as I say entrepreneurship love so just slowly, slowly moved into careers, helping people leave those jobs that they hated which is what I was passionate about at the time and get a new job, which is what I was doing at the time, and I was doing CV training and LinkedIn training and all that kind of stuff.

Joanna Lott: 22:53

In those career conversations, I suppose, as soon as someone didn't want to get a new job or wanted to set up a business, then I was like, literally, this is the dream conversation here, and I think I got all in on marketing, growing my business. So other coaches started asking for my help and I was ending up spending probably five hours a week minimum given I have so limited time because I've got school that I was only and whatever else I was helping other coaches for like free, trying to help them. How do they start, how do they market all that kind of stuff. And eventually I launched a small group program which has grown.

Joanna Lott: 23:29

And then obviously it's grown so much now that I've had to make that decision, which felt super scary when I'd worked so hard to build up my career and executive coaching business. But at some point you can't market two niches, it's two different businesses. It's too hard. So I made the brave decision to just go all in on my love of entrepreneurship and helping coaches build their business, which is exactly what I wish I had found when I started my business. I think that is the missing link, isn't it?

Elizabeth Willetts: 23:57

There is a lot I think we've spoken before about. You know how to train to be a coach, but then what do you do once you've got that qualification? You don't want to waste that qualification.

Joanna Lott: 24:06

It's the time, it's the money, it's the investment isn't it, and it's gutting that most people sadly do waste that qualification.

Elizabeth Willetts: 24:16

But how many coaching businesses?

Joanna Lott: 24:18

fail. Do you know? So 82% of coaching businesses fail in the first two years. Because I think you come out of coach training you think that it's going to be easy and require no work, because there are a lot of adverts out there telling you that this is easy and requires no work. And then it requires a lot of courage to be visible and a lot of work. You know a lot of consistency and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, sadly, you know, some people are just not cut out for that. They've maybe gone into coaching thinking I just love like spending time one-on-one with people in a quiet room and then suddenly you're expecting them to market and put themselves out there and they're like, no, this isn't what I signed up for, this isn't what I wanted. So it's a shame that awareness isn't there prior to people training to become a coach.

Elizabeth Willetts: 25:07

Yeah, because I suppose, even if you put it in that quote coaching qualification that you're going to have to do things, that you may feel uncomfortable, it's not too late at that point because they've already committed.

Joanna Lott: 25:18

Exactly, it is too late at that point, like you say. I mean, don't get me wrong, though training to become a coach, even if you don't set up a coaching business, is a transformative experience, you know. But if you are going into it with your eyes open, knowing that you are going to transform, versus, you know, thinking it's just job done as soon as you're qualified and these people are coming in and you don't have to do marketing because sadly, you don't have a business if you don't do marketing and sales and like you know, you're like me.

Elizabeth Willetts: 25:47

We're small business owners. You have to actually be quite visible as a small business owner. You've not got that marketing budget that you know. We wouldn't know who the CEO of Coca-Cola is, for example, because they've got such huge marketing budget.

Joanna Lott: 25:58

They can sort of hide behind that, whereas a small business owner which is what a lot of these coaches are you do, unfortunately, quite visible, and it is you do, and I think there's a good mindset shift and that's what I'm good at helping people with, because I felt like absolutely horrified with putting out my first LinkedIn post, for example, let alone a video, let alone running a training or talking at a webinar or an event. I would have just, I would just would not have been able to do that four years ago. So I think I've somehow found so what's that mindset shift then?

Elizabeth Willetts: 26:28

Can anybody do it? Can anybody be trained to do it with you know?

Joanna Lott: 26:32

Yeah, I mean, I do think so. I think what it is is finding your passion about why you are doing this, and that will hopefully drive you to put your ideal client in front of your own ego of I don't want to do this and what they're going to think of me and me, me, me, me, me versus. There's a lot of people out there who need my help. Let's get out there and help them, and marketing is an amazing way of helping people for free, like I can help people through my podcast Women in the Coaching Arena. I always have a blog I write every single week all my social media free workshops. I mean, fine, they are not paying clients, those people, but I'm on a mission to help more coaches build coaching businesses, so that suits me just fine. You know that I can help masses of people through my marketing as well as, obviously, people through my paid programs. In a way, more personal, deep capacity. Yeah, interesting.

Elizabeth Willetts: 27:23

I know that you're an IVF moment as well and I know you. I'm looking off that. You mentioned no courage and it takes a lot of courage to go through. I don't know if you found that. Do you think having gone through something like that has actually helped you then in business?

Joanna Lott: 27:38

Yeah, it's good point. Yeah, I think so, because you know you've just got to do it and you have no idea if it's going to work or not. But you've made that decision, that that's what you want and you've got to go after it. So, like you say, it's exactly the same with your business. It's going to be a tough road, but if you want to do it, you can achieve it, and you've just got to be prepared to take the risk and be courageous and do something without knowing the outcome first. What?

Elizabeth Willetts: 28:03

do you see as common traits in the most successful coaches that you know?

Joanna Lott: 28:09

Yeah, I think being prepared to not be perfect is the first one, being prepared to do the thing versus wait until you have six months worth of content batched and then you'll put the first post out and it's like no, no, come on, we just need to learn as we go. So being prepared to do that for sure and being prepared to be visible and the courage to choose a niche, I think is also another thing that's important for coaches and lots of people could stay in that lack of clarity for a really long time, because it takes courage to take that step without knowing if you are going to be saying goodbye to all your clients and no one's going to come because you've chosen this really specialist niche. So I think that takes courage to make that decision. Yeah, absolutely.

Elizabeth Willetts: 28:53

So how taught people have talked to us about how you work with people and in what capacity you can help them.

Joanna Lott: 28:59

I have a six month mentorship program called the business of coaching, which literally takes people from having no idea where to begin to building a meaningful business that makes Do they need to have trained, and then do they need to have done that?

Elizabeth Willetts: 29:12

quote coach and qualification first.

Joanna Lott: 29:15

Yeah, but everybody I work with are qualified coaches. In all honesty, it is an unregulated industry so you don't have to be qualified to be a coach, but I think I obviously attract qualified coaches because I am a qualified coach as well. I've done my ILM level seven and ICF ACC qualifications too. So I do believe that you really do need to be a qualified coach and you do need to train to become a coach to be able to actually effectively get a coaching business. So, yeah, ideally for sure you would want to be fine, you can be a consultant or something different, and the same process pretty much will work. I'm teaching, I specialize in helping coaches, so generally everyone is qualified.

Elizabeth Willetts: 29:56

Yeah, so they come on with you and you do one-to-ones for six months. You know.

Joanna Lott: 30:01

So it's a group program because, again, I feel like that is another massive hurdle. When you start your business, it's like on your own and it's really lonely and you've got no idea where to begin. You've got no idea if what you're experiencing is normal or not, or if it's just you. So I much prefer to have group coaching, which I combine with one-to-one support and feedback to be able to help them, and I obviously provide the training that they need as well. But it's in a group capacity because I do believe you need that training of like here's exactly what you need to do, and you need the community to keep you inspired and motivated to keep taking action, and you need support and accountability from someone who has done it before and has got the experience that you need to be able to help you move forward.

Joanna Lott: 30:48

So, yeah, so it's a group program, because that is my joy and it has really worked way more than one-to-one coaching, because what you'll find is you might want to market to corporates and I might have someone in my program that has 20 years corporate HR experience and is used to signing off these contracts, and we'll be able to say here's what worked for me. This is why I signed this contract, because they approached me like this. Or you might have someone who's great at public speaking in my group and you want to do public speaking and you've got no idea how to do it. So, whilst I have got lots of experience and can share all my experience with you, there are also masses of people with current real-life experience doing TikTok and public speaking and things that I maybe haven't done. You know, and everyone gets to share. And yeah, a rising tide lifts all boats. I think, yeah, that's how many people are in the group program then.

Joanna Lott: 31:39

So there are currently around 18 to 20 people in the business of coaching and, yeah, I think that's a really nice number because I know everyone super well, they know each other super well and it's big enough to still have that momentum of like someone going this is what worked for me. I've just signed a client and then someone else thinking, oh my gosh, it worked for them, maybe it could work for me and that kind of healthy competition. But it really does help to see someone that was really nervous do the things that you want to do and you think, my God, like they've overcome so much, maybe I can too. Is it an ongoing thing or is it got set start?

Elizabeth Willetts: 32:21

dates.

Joanna Lott: 32:21

Yeah, no, it's an ongoing thing, so it's an evergreen model, so you can join whenever it's you. And again, I like that because I don't want people to have to just join when I decide to do a big launch. And also it helps because then you're on your own journey, like I used to run it as a cohort model. Then people felt even more behind because then they're like right, this week we're nailing our niche, next week we're creating our offer. If by week two they haven't another niche, then they're panicking, thinking, oh my God, all these people are well ahead of me, whereas when you join the group as it currently is, you just start on your own pathway, like you are where you are and they are where they are. You don't need to keep up and start panicking everyone else's head of you, because someone will come in behind you and you can be that inspiration to them as well.

Elizabeth Willetts: 33:07

Interesting Sounds like I know you said you didn't want to work in a school, but you obviously enjoy teaching, you know, in some capacity.

Joanna Lott: 33:15

Oh, yeah, yeah, I absolutely love it. Yeah, for sure. Which is something I didn't realise and again it's probably why I went on this journey is I'm a way better teacher than I am coach. I just love to share my knowledge. I think I did one of those assessments once which literally came out with like, yeah, teacher is the top one of like yeah, you just love to share your knowledge, which I do, and in coaching, you're not meant to share any knowledge. So it was actually really hard for my natural tendencies, because you went to just ask questions and not share your insights and things Interesting. I did not know that.

Joanna Lott: 33:51

Yeah, it is. I mean, business coaching is very different. They call it business coaching. There's no such thing really, because generally you are hiring a business coach because they are helping you.

Elizabeth Willetts: 33:59

I'm going to say my business coach has definitely told me what to do, which is fine.

Joanna Lott: 34:04

So we should just call it business mentorship. So I should say I'm a business mentor rather than a business coach, because coaching is not about giving advice and saying here's what I would do if I were you or here's what I've seen work before is about just allowing them space. So but I think most people know the word business coach, so most people call themselves a business coach, but actually it's not coaching at all. When you're working with people on their business, most of the time you're hiring someone that's more experienced than you. That's done what you want to do and you kind of want someone to tell you what to do. That's pretty much what I do, so I can use my coaching skills and questioning to help them explore what marketing channel they might want to use. What I am suggesting, that they do some marketing which a coach wouldn't really be suggesting. They would be kind of going where do you want to go? What do you want to do Versus me going? We do need to choose the marketing. Let's choose the marketing method.

Elizabeth Willetts: 34:53

Yeah, very interesting. I've really learned a lot chatting to you, Joanna. So where can people find you, connect with you, remind everyone about your podcast? And just remind everyone is on the name of your group coaching program.

Joanna Lott: 35:03

Yes, perfect. So LinkedIn is my main platform. You can find me there, joanna Lotts, and message me. I would love to hear from you. My podcast is called Women in the Coaching Arena and I feel really guilty because I've signed up four men in the last week or two who have been listening to my podcast Really. Oh well, that's nice, it is. Oh, it's so, so nice.

Joanna Lott: 35:24

I think at the time I created my podcast, my program was all women, so I kind of thought, well, ok, I'll just niche into that because that seems to be what I'm attracting and, funnily enough, since actually creating my podcast and launching it now I seem to be now men are going. Do you work with men as well, which I do and I absolutely love? So, yeah, it's called Women in the Coaching Arena, but if you're a man, you are very welcome to have a listen, exactly Because it's useful for everyone. But I like to niche down because I think I talk often about the things like women wanting to earn more money than the school job, to get term time, only work. So I kind of thought that's my passion, that's what I like talking about. So I wanted to be able to go all in and talk about that freely, which I feel like now my podcast enables me to do, and obviously there are men that also want to get that balance, but generally it's women that are like I need to be able to do all of the things.

Joanna Lott: 36:19

So, yeah, so my podcast and my website is JoannaLotCoachingcom. I have a blog that's written every single week with helpful information to help people to build their business yeah, I think that's it. And my program is called the Business of Coaching Six Month Mentorship Programme to take you from where you are now which might be just starting out, or many people have been years into business who join my program to to actually building a thriving business, because even if you are established three or four years into your business, it still takes consistent learning momentum. Things change all of the time. So, yeah, the program doesn't just teach previous outdated techniques, like I'm always learning, I'm always part of programs myself. So we will be going into how AI is changing things. What's working now? What's worked for my clients last week, you know? So it's about continuously being on that journey with people and, you know, inspiring you to take action, absolutely.

Elizabeth Willetts: 37:16

I love that, because life doesn't stand still, business doesn't stand still, so it's definitely always worth investing in your learning. So thank you so much, joanna, for joining us today. It's such a pleasure to chat with you.

Joanna Lott: 37:27

Thank you, Liz.

Elizabeth Willetts: 37:31

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work it Like A Mom podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend. If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode. You can also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Until next time, keep on chasing your big dreams.