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Ep 4. The Secret to Scaling: $10k Months
[00:02] I'm about to tell you something that you have heard before, and it is that what got you here isn't what is going to get you there. And you may have heard this before. You may know this: that the way you built your business to get to $10k months is the very thing that's capping you from ever hitting consistent $50k or $100k months. Because at $10k months, it is normal to say yes to most things, to stack your calendar with one-to-one calls, to over-deliver, over-give, and to feel like you are carrying your clients. If you have ever been there, I see you, but let's be real. You can't scale to multi six or seven figures with that same energy. And deep down, you already know that, because the model you've built to get here, it feels heavy, and heavy doesn't scale.
At $10k months, your focus is often on survival. You'll do whatever it takes to take anyone on as a client, whether they inspire you or not. You'll ignore potentially those red flags, and you'll say, "Yes, I'm going to ignore those red flags," only to feel like, "Wow, maybe down the road," you're like, "I don't know if that was even worth the money." Or maybe you're building programs where you are like promising the world, [01:27] and your offers feel a little heavy for you to deliver, and you're trading every available hour for coaching calls. But that mentality, it gets you... like, that grit, that day-one energy, it really gets you to a certain level, but it also creates an invisible ceiling where you feel capped because you are. Your current product suite wasn't built for $100k months. It was built for $10k survival.
I had a client, a super successful executive coach, and on paper, she had it all— [01:58] consistent $20k months, private clients who paid her well, credibility in her industry. But when she came to me, she said, "Adrian, I feel like I am in one-to-one hell." And together, we looked at her calendar, and I was like, "Whoa. I get it. When are you taking a break? When are you eating? When do you even have time to go pee?" Because her calendar was wall-to-wall calls from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. [02:27] She couldn't take a vacation without feeling really stressed, without worrying about her clients being upset with her, [02:35] and really she had traded her corporate nine-to-five for a new cage, [02:40] a cage that she built, [02:42] except this time, she was both the boss and the prisoner.
And her problem wasn't that she couldn't sell. She was selling. Her problem was that her offers weren't scalable, and every dollar depended on her being live, being on, and delivering 110%. [02:57] So together, we really restructured her product suite. We started by looking at her offers, because we need to make sure that your offer suite matches your lifestyle desires. There are going to be some people who love doing one-to-one work. It's like you love the depth. That's what you really want to be doing, and you can either scale that through really just raising your prices, [03:21] or you might say, "I really love working in community. I love building these, like, community spaces," and in that, having more scalable offers is really going to be working for you. Other people might say, "Like, I really love the idea of having a mastermind," where, for someone else, it's like, "A mastermind actually feels really heavy." What's so important about this is making sure that you are designing a product suite that aligns with you and your personal vision. [03:54]
This does not mean you just copy-and-pasting your mentor's product suite and launch strategy into your business, because just because it worked for her doesn't mean that that is how you want to run your business. [04:09] When I, a few years ago, I had a mastermind, and I had created this mastermind and structured it really similarly to... I used, like, the same model that my coach was using at that time, and it had a retreat. It had co-coaches in it. And to be honest, it just felt very heavy to deliver. [04:31] And I had to take the step back to ask myself, "Why did I build it in that way?" And the honest truth was that I didn't know why. I just knew that it worked for my mentor. So I was like, "Well, it's going to work for me." And I had built this offer that didn't really feel like me. [04:51] So I ended up closing that mastermind down, [04:54] and instead opened up my true dream mastermind, my dream mastermind [05:00] where we got to dive deep on sales strategy, on sales skills.
I got to really focus on, like, the sales side, because that's my zone of genius. I've been in sales my entire career, having taught sales for huge organizations like LinkedIn and having been a seller myself. So I know sales and how to sell inside and out, especially how to sell using your unique strengths. And in my first mastermind, I was trying to, like, solve every single answer, every single business topic under the sun, because I thought that's what you had to do in a mastermind. [05:41] And I thought that's what we had to do to be successful, because that's what was modeled for me, instead of just leaning into my zone of genius. This zone of genius around sales, as well as what's so core to helping people double or triple their revenue is their strategy. But I'm also obsessed with the mindset side and the subconscious side. I'm a trained and certified NLP practitioner, and I know that change is an inner game. Growth is an inner game.
So I knew that bringing these two things together is really what created and set apart my mastermind. And when I got to let go of what I thought I needed to do and instead embrace the offer that actually lit my soul on fire, that mastermind sold out. It sold out before I ever even publicly spoke about it, [06:32] and it was full of people who I loved working with, and that's the difference when you're creating offers that are truly in alignment to you.
So back to my client. [06:43] I promise we're connecting it all. So my client, the executive coach, who was really doing a lot of one-to-one work, because she was told, "If you want to make a lot of money, just do high-ticket one-to-one work." And so she was [06:59] and what that created for her was she really needed to be on, delivering at 110%, [07:06] was only getting paid if she was showing up on calls, and that was not the lifestyle that she wanted to have. When I asked her what she really had a big vision for, she wanted to create a community of executives, because executives—being at the top can be really lonely. And [07:25] and she really also wanted to have more spaciousness for herself. She had three young kids under the age of five at home, and she was like, "I cannot be on these back-to-back calls."
So we immediately restructured her product suite with her values and her vision first. [07:44] That's so different than structuring your product suite from the lens of like, "Just, what do I sell so someone buys?" Instead, it's like, "What are the offers that I know are going to create true transformation for my clients, but also create real freedom for myself?" We also created really clear boundaries in her delivery, because she was over-giving, over-giving so much [08:08] she thought that she had to respond immediately when clients asked her questions, and she was attracting a lot of freebie seekers because of this. So we really repositioned her offer to attract higher-level, self-led clients instead of the ones who drained her. And the result is she ended up cutting her hours in half. And the best part? Her income. It not only did it not dip, it grew, because she could hold more clients at a higher standard without the burnout. [08:36]
That's the shift. I really want you to hear that if you want multi six or seven figures, you have to stop thinking like a coach running a practice, and start building like a leader running a company. That means you are going to need to introduce most likely scalable offers, whether that's group programs, masterminds, digital products, courses, so that you have revenue streams in your business that don't rely on you performing. They don't rely on you being on it. [09:05] It also requires that you have boundaries that protect your energy while still delivering transformation. You can't scale a business that only works if you're constantly in the room. You need an ecosystem of offers that expand your income without collapsing your energy. [09:21]
The Power of Scalable Offers
Now, a lot of coaches, I want to talk for a moment about why groups are so powerful, but also why they sometimes can feel a little heavy, and how to fix it. [09:32] Now, a lot of coaches try groups or masterminds, but they still feel heavy. Why? Because you set them up like a glorified one-to-one. You're still reviewing everyone's copy. You're still answering every DM like it's urgent. You're still treating yourself like a coach that's on call 24/7, like you're somehow a little chat GPT responsiveness for your clients. That's not scalable. That is unsustainable.
So the fix is really simple, but powerful. [10:00] It's about setting clear boundaries. Maybe you don't want to be in the community Monday through Friday. [10:08] Maybe you don't want to be in the community at all. You want your community space, like your Telegram, [10:18] your Slack, [10:20] wherever you have your community, your WhatsApp thread, maybe you actually don't want to be the one holding it all. Maybe you want it to be more community-led. [10:30] But right now, you believe you have to be available all the time in order for your clients to feel like they're getting value. [10:37] You need to prime your clients on what kind of support they can expect, [10:41] and also how your clients can really get the most out of the program, and how they can really lead themselves. [10:48] It's positioning your group as a space for leaders, not dependents. [10:53]
So often I see coaches create this like, codependent relationship, where, because you're saying, "Like, send that to me, [11:02] I want to review that for you," [11:05] that you're actually disempowering your clients because they can't make a move without asking for your permission or your approval first. [11:15] But instead, when you really empower your clients, you show them how to not just... you're not just feeding the answer, but you're actually helping them, yes, get to the answer, but you're also explaining, like, the why behind it, the thinking behind it, the strategy behind it. They're going to be able to take that and apply that into other scenarios. It's [11:35] going to position your group, really, as that space, again, for leaders. [11:40] This is not only going to lighten the load for you, it's going to elevate your clients.
And sometimes what you're really missing is not the offer, but it's getting the right people in the offer. And the reason why you're not getting the right people is because you're not messaging—you're messaging your offer as like a "save you" offer. You're playing the "save your coach." "I'm going to save you. I'm [12:01] going to solve all your problems." High-level clients are like, "Look, I'm flying fast, but I want to go side-by-side with someone. [12:11] I want to be working with someone." [12:15] When I think about the mentors that I hire, I do not look at them to save me. [12:21] I know that my success rests on my shoulders. I'm the one that's going to create that. [12:28] And I am smart, I am capable, and having a mentor that I can, like, collab with is something that makes such a huge difference, versus someone that is like, "Oh, I need a mentor to give me permission and tell me how to take every single step of action." When you stop babysitting, when you stop playing "save your coach," "save your mentor," your clients actually rise into their own power. [12:57]
So I want you to really think about, where are you limiting or where are you capping your programs right now? And [13:05] we're going to talk about that inside of this next episode, where we're going to get really practical. I'm going to talk to you about how to sell and scale like a conscious leader. But before we get into that episode, I really want you to look at your current product suite to think, do you really have a product suite that is connected, that is cohesive, that everything is leading into another offer? Or right now, do you have offers that kind of sit separate? They're a little disjointed, they're all on different topics that don't really add up. So I want you to think like, who is actually the person that you want to be attracting? How can you be a match for that person?
If you're attracting clients right now that feel like, "Oh, my clients are always struggling." The first thing I want you to look at is your messaging. Are you attracting and messaging only to struggle? You're like, "You're struggling with XYZ. If you're struggling with this, and if you're struggling with that, well, then you should come into my program." And then you're like, "Wow, why is everyone who's coming into my program struggling?" And [14:07] you're like, "Oh, it makes sense, because your marketing is actually working. There's nothing—you're like, 'Oh, my marketing is not working.' No, it is. It's just you're marketing to the wrong person."
So I want you to look at two things, both your product suite and structure. Do you have offers in your product suite that are going to allow you to actually scale [14:30] without you trading time, [14:34] with you, actually looking at your product suite like a CEO and less like an employee? [14:41] Like when I worked, I used to work as a consultant, so I feel like I've lived many lives. I've been in—I've sold medical devices. I've worked as a consultant, consulting with Fortune 500 companies on how to create, like, high-performing teams and great leaders and managers.
Like, that was my former life [15:00] before I worked at LinkedIn and taught sales to thousands of sellers. But one of the things that I really learned in my consulting life was like billable hours. It's like you bill for every hour. Every hour that you work is what you get paid. And when you bring that, that mentality into your own company, that is when you burn out because all of your offers are like, "I—it requires a lot of time. It requires a lot of me."
And I realized there was a time in my business where I didn't have a lot of offers that were truly scalable, and even the ones that I said were scalable were not always so scalable. They were like, [15:39] "Yes, it's a group program, except every single person is going to get a monthly one-to-one call with me." Not scalable. There's a cap to that.
So I really want you to look at your product suite to say, like, where are there shifts that you could make to really increase the scalability of that offer? Maybe there is a new offer that is more passive that we want to start to introduce so you can be making money without you being on. And then looking at like, where are you limiting your offers because you might be playing into "save your coach" mentality, or you haven't really set up the expectations within your containers to really allow your clients to be empowered and embodied, versus needing to ask for permission.
So with that, we will see you inside of the next episode.
