Lessons For New Entrepreneurs: Client Attraction, Your Value, Authenticity

Most new entrepreneurs don’t quit because they lack talent. They quit because they start measuring their worth by their calendar and their bank balance, then try to “fix” the panic with random marketing tactics that don’t even fit them. I’m sharing the 3 lessons that kept me in the entrepreneurship game long enough to finally see real growth after years of slow seasons. 

Then we go deeper into the self-worth piece. We’ll walk through the questions and reframes that loosen the grip of money shame, so you can make smart shifts without turning your business into a judgment of your humanity. Finally, we cover intuition in business: how to stretch yourself, test strategies, and still protect authenticity so you don’t burn out or build a brand you resent. 

If this helps, subscribe for more entrepreneurship mindset and energetic alignment tools, share it with a new entrepreneur you care about, and leave a quick review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Big-Life Question

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Do you ever get the feeling that you're destined for an even bigger, bolder, more magical life? Welcome to the Conscious Glow Up. I'm your host, intuitive energy healer and coach, Crystal Ward. My goal is to help you create the life you fantasize about by teaching you energetic spiritual laws of the universe and neuroscience tools. I'll share how I utilize these teachings in my own life with stories of single motherhood, entrepreneurship, finances, and relationships. Let's dive on into the depths of consciousness and glow up from the inside out. Hello, hello, welcome back to the conscious glow up.

Why Most New Coaches Struggle

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Today's episode is for any new entrepreneur. I started my business at the end of 2019, and so far I have invested at least 100k in various marketing and business courses, coaches, and mentors. I have learned a lot, but I'm still learning more every day, both in and out of the classroom. Today, my intention is to share some of the most valuable lessons that have stuck with me. I'm not going to teach you how to build your website to have attractive SEO or anything technical like that. This episode is about the energetics of starting the game of entrepreneurship and staying in the game, especially when you are questioning it all, especially when you feel like you are failing. According to Google, I quote, life coaching has a high failure rate with an estimated 80 to 85% of coaches failing to sustain a profitable business within their first one to two years. Although the industry is growing, many practitioners fail not due to a lack of coaching skill, but because they lack business marketing and sales skills. And boy, ain't that true. The school where I got my first three certifications from promised high success rates right out of the gate. I kind of think at this point that that was a little bit of a marketing ploy. I was one of many vulnerable new coaches after getting certified, and many businesses and business coaches know the emotional struggle that new coaches go through when we are trying so hard to succeed, feeling like because we aren't making huge money right away, that we must be doing something wrong. So we are looking for anyone to just tell us what to do. And that is capitalized on a lot. There are many business coaches who do lead with heart, but there are also many who see the money grab in a new coach's vulnerability. And I was definitely that new coach for quite a while. But even if you aren't made promises of riches in your first year, the ego still thinks that if you are playing, you should automatically be winning. And that is why the failure statistic that I just mentioned is so high. So it would have been basically impossible for me to have been successful, air quotes, with a full roster of clients out the gate. I had so, so, so many lessons to learn. I'm still learning lessons. Um, but I am seven years in business now, and just last year did I finally see some big growth. Lord, finally, Lord finally, and let's go. However, the reason I made it so long, barely making $2,000 per year in my business was sheer grit, a little bit of insanity, perseverance like a madman, and I knew that if I wanted to make my entrepreneurial dream come true, I had to stop at literally nothing. I knew I had to be the last man standing in my own game. There was a voice in my head, ever since I was about five years old, that told me consistently throughout the years, you're gonna be a business owner when you grow up. It was just a little voice, nothing big or dramatic. I didn't draw or write, you know, business plans or think about businesses really at all. It was just a little sentence that I heard periodically growing up. Yeah, even with that little voice, I didn't consistently think about different avenues that I could even take. I honestly probably didn't even know what the word entrepreneur was until I was 18, and I definitely did not understand the blood, sweat, and literal tears that it would take to bring that voice to

The Moment She Chose Coaching

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reality. One day while I was waitressing at a casino steakhouse, it was about a month actually before I learned that I was pregnant, I was serving a party of one, his broccolini and ribeye, and it hit me mid-serve from dish to his plate, like I was watching the broccoli broccolini on the large serving fork hang mid-air while my brain was hit with a pile of bricks. And I realized, Crystal, you are supposed to be doing something uh much bigger with your life. So I told my therapist the next week, I'm enrolling to get my master's degree at George Mason to become a therapist. I was very excited to be making plans to start my own career, a career that felt like something my soul wanted me to do, and could see how possibly I could be fulfilling a dream. And funny enough, though, at the time of my dawn of a new business in mind, I wasn't even thinking about that voice I had had in my head from childhood. It was kind of like it was all already planned, and I was just walking the steps. I just knew that I wanted to help people and I wanted to make that my profession. Excited for me, my therapist recommended that I actually become a coach instead of a therapist because of how obsessed I was with personal development, health, and mindset. So I Googled immediately after our session. What is a coach? Learned what that was very quickly, and then looked up some of the top coaching schools that came up on Google, and I took her advice, enrolled, and I am so happy that I did that. Even though it has not been easy, I am very proud of myself for staying the course of starting my own service-based business from the ground up. So, in those tens of thousands of dollars that I've spent on investing in myself and my business since 2019, what I have for you today are the top three lessons that I learned that have contributed to the success I have had, the success I will have, and they are all lessons that will never expire for the duration of my career.

Lesson One Clients Are Everywhere

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The first lesson that came to mind, and the one that inspired this episode is the idea that our clients are around us all of the time. And I mean this in an energetic sense. I learned this from Stacey Bayman, who has an incredible program called Make Money as a Life Coach. If you are a new coach or someone who provides a similar service, or if you have been a coach for a little bit and you are like me, you know, I was on the struggle bus for a while, I highly recommend starting with her podcast from episode one. It's called the same thing, make money as a life coach. And then if that content resonates with you, I do strongly suggest her program as well. She's a high-quality thinker, and her ability to self-coach has contributed to her success because of the value she brings to her own brain and her own life, which is then imparted to her students. The idea that our clients are all around us does not mean that we have to put a billboard on our bodies and stand on the corner throwing our business cards at passers-by. This idea means that at any given moment there are people who want your service and you are not even aware of it. There are always people ready to buy somewhere. But if our mindset is not calibrated to that fact, like when we have not seen much or any business income, then that idea is probably not present in our awareness. Meaning that we are energetically showing up to the world from a place of lack. Thoughts could sound like nobody wants what I have, nobody even knows who I am, and will I ever make a sale? What happens when our thoughts are driven by lack is that our actions are driven by lack. Thought patterns breed similar thought patterns, and those thought patterns create actions, and those actions are what create our results. If we are showing up to life and events and situations and people with lack thoughts that there are no clients for me, then other people will not be energetically picking up on the fact that you have something amazing to sell. Your clients are all around you, but you have to be energetically calibrated internally in order for you to be on the frequency to actually pull them into your life. They are in your orbit, but you also have to be in theirs. And even to this day, I have known this concept for years now. To this day, I can feel when I am energetically out of balance, energetically off, feeling lack and scarcity. And those are the weeks where I am not receiving new prospects and I am not receiving leads who are paying. But when I switch, it's kind of like turning a waterfall sit on. Is that when I switch myself energetically and I finally feel again that I am in that more abundant state of mind, I'm feeling better about myself and my life and my finances, that magically that first day, at least one person reaches out wanting to pay me. When you can root to the belief that clients are all around you wanting to buy, even when you have nobody on your schedule, then you are operating from a positive higher vibration and perspective. So you will take different actions that will lead to positive higher vibration results. When your energy reads clients are near, it presupposes that you have something valuable to offer to clients and that you are available to help those clients. Actions taken from that belief and those thoughts might include creating a free downloadable PDF for your social media audience for you to provide value and capture email addresses for your email list. Or creating a YouTube channel or podcast to expand your reach, or telling people who you meet at the grocery store or library or your kids' birthday parties about what you do. I honestly love when my daughter gets invited to birthday parties because I'm like, sweet, this is an awesome networking event for me. Or you might make an offer to help someone who you know in your life could benefit from your services. Your thoughts dictate how you move in the world, and your energy is felt by those around you. They will subconsciously, intuitively pick up on whether or not you feel you have something valuable to offer. This leads to the second

Lesson Two Worth Is Not Revenue

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lesson. This was a huge one for me, and this shifted literally everything for me and how I showed up in my business and in the world. This really helped me. And this actually came to me one night on my own a few years ago. I did not pay for this advice and learn it in a course. I had to feel the opposite belief for three years until I realized how untrue and how unhelpful that belief was. Lesson number two is your client roster does not dictate your value. And on the same note, your bank account does not dictate your value, whether you are a business owner, service provider, or not. Let me repeat that. Your client roster does not dictate your value, and your business or bank account does not dictate your value. There were oh so many months at a time where I had only one or no clients on my schedule. I lived in my overdraft account while living in an expensive Northern Virginia apartment as a single mom. But even after moving out of that apartment, overdraft was no distant friend. I was in the negative for nearly three years straight. And every time I watched my money dip, I believed that it had to mean that I did not have value. I was not worthy of having clients because I had no money. And logically, it seems like it could be correct, right? Like if I was valuable, then naturally I would be getting paid by real human beings for my real services. But it was a huge fallacy that kept me stuck. And I know I am not the only one who has fell victim to that lovely belief because since then I have had clients come to me for subconscious rewiring services to change their own money and self-worth and value beliefs, and that is a very common belief. And the results they have gotten have been just as mind-blowing as mine or more. Here are some of the questions I asked myself and those clients, questions that helped me shift the perspective that being a worthy or valuable person only comes from having sales and money. Would you agree that a homeless person has no value? No. Would you agree that a baby with nothing to offer the world but a blank slate and a dirty diaper with no bank account has no value? Absolutely not. We aren't jerks here. Would you agree that a recent college graduate with no job has no value? No. Look at everything they just went through and learned for the past four years a minimum. Would you agree that somebody who just filed for bankruptcy has no value? No. Everybody has value because they were born. You are more likely to win the lottery than for your soul to incarnate. Everybody has value. And you know who has a fuck ton of value? You do. You who has experience. You who have gleaned many, many lessons from life. You who, just like me, even at the time, probably has numerous certifications to prove that value, I say with air quotes. Your client roster does not say a single word about your value. However, what it could mean is that you need to make some shifts, both energetic and physical. For example, it could mean that you have room to work on the beliefs you are carrying that are driving your thoughts, which drive your actions and create your results. It could mean that you have room to work on your mindset, meaning catching the automatic thoughts that run on a daily basis in your brain and coaching yourself on how to focus on what you do have in both life and business rather than what you don't have. What we focus on grows. It could mean that you have room to make more offers or share more stories on social media or talk with more people in your life about what you do and what you're working on. It could mean that you need to get more comfortable going out and meeting real people and striking up conversations in public with the intention of networking with other human beings and possibly making connections that could lead to business leads, which could lead to potential clients and sign clients. For me personally, that was a huge struggle. I am, I mean, I'm an outgoing person, but going out in the world and just striking up conversations with random people, it was hard at first, but now it's actually very fun. And it has been wildly transformative for my income that I make in my business. Almost all of my clients have not been from social media, despite the years I've spent marketing on social media, but have come from meeting people in the world or from word of mouth. Your client roster does not dictate your value or your worth, nor does your bank account. They are just illuminating the ways in which you can grow, shift, and execute in new ways.

Lesson Three Trust Your Gut

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Lesson number three is my current favorite tool. Follow your intuition. But I did not follow mine for a very long time, which is why I'm coming to you with this lesson. Life, yes, I was actually very good at following my intuition in my life. But business, not so much. Kind of like because of what I touched on earlier, is that I, because I wasn't making consistent or high income, I felt like I must be doing something wrong. So instead of following what I felt like, you know, the steps I felt like I should be taking in business, I thought everybody else around me had all of the answers. And I gave, I put everybody that I hired onto pedestals and thought, okay, well, they're doing something right, so I must have to do exactly what they're doing. And the kind of intuition I'm talking about is not the scientifically precise intuition that I've been training in classes for the past year. Here I am talking about following your gut when it comes to how you want to operate your business. And if you were like me, you have probably hired a handful or so of help, whether from courses, coaches, or mentors, or even not hired help, but just seeing what your peers are doing. And comparison is a another huge trap, but we'll save that for later. We are not here on this earth to be cookies cut from the same cookie cutter. You and your mentor could both be chocolate chip cookies, but maybe you are meant to be crunchy and she is supposed to be chewy. Maybe your cookie is star-shaped and hers is heart-shaped. Business coaches often teach specific systems, systems that helped their business get to where they are, and where they are is probably where you wanted to be to, or you wouldn't have hired them. But here is a fantastic example from my own experience of when listening to my mentor was completely unaligned to me, and my gut and nervous system screamed for me not to follow his system. And nothing against him as a human being. He was a very great coach when it came to abundance mindset and things like that, but the specific strategy he used to get his clients is not something my higher self or human self wants me doing ever. The system was to social media follow and reach out to 50 Instagram accounts every single day. Follow, and then immediately send a voice note. I remember doing a whopping five of these, feeling like I was going to puke, and knowing damn well that the human on the other side of my terrified voice memo was like, Who the freak is this girl? And I know she is just trying to sell me something. You want to know how many replied? Yes, all of them. Just kidding, zero. So I stopped the strategy, and I actually stopped my mentorship with him because he had no other tools to help me other than to meditate every morning. And I'm not even gonna tell you how much I was paying him, but let's just say I opened a new credit card that had no interest for 15 months, and as a new mom on maternity leave with no job, not the brightest investment decision, but lessons come sometimes expensively. So I took the lesson and learned a lot about when to and when not to invest. There have been other things that coaches have told me to do that just were not my style, things that did not fit authentic crystal energy. And when I am not showing up in authentic crystal energy, people read that inauthenticity. From that energy, do you think they engage with my content or buy from me? No, they do not. But I'm not saying, I am definitely not saying never try anything new, and I am definitely not saying don't stretch yourself. Had I not tried cold calling people, maybe I'd have missed an opportunity for a new strategy that could have worked for me. But I quickly realized that it did not work for me, so I stopped. Stretching ourselves is one of the points of entrepreneurship. It's about taking risk for possible reward. Investments aren't made with any guarantees, and starting a business has no guarantees. But stretching ourselves and trying new things is one of the valuable ways we learn to expand our capacity. And when we expand our capacity to grow and do new things, we are also expanding our capacity to call in more wealth. Stretch yourself, but do not continue processes, tools, or anything that you know in your heart is not aligned with you. Some coaches recommend batching content. They will make 10 reels, videos, and long form captions for each one in a single day. And that's wonderful for them, but that has never worked for me. Everything will work for some people, everything will not work for everyone. Try new things, test the waters, and feel how what you are doing feels in your body. Don't keep doing something that makes you want to freaking scream every time you do it just because your peers have success with it or just because your coach told you to just stick with it. You know yourself best, you know your energy best. Trust yourself.

Recap Plus How To Connect

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Okay, to recap, lesson number one: there are always clients around you. You just have to believe that and in yourself. Believe in yourself in order to align yourself to them. Lesson number two your value is in no way, shape, or form tied to your number of clients or dollars in your bank account. Lesson number three, follow your authenticity, explore new things, but at the end of the day. Make sure you are being true to your energy, or you will burn out, quit, and likely cry a lot on the way to quitting. You may have heard all three of these concepts before, and if so, I invite you to sit with them again and see which ones maybe you should give more weight to, which one feels most important to remember today. And if you haven't heard these concepts before, because I did say this episode was for new entrepreneurs, then I am happy that hopefully you have the chance to try these out a lot sooner than I ever did. And my intention is that these lessons I learned can save you time, pain, and money. Remember, entrepreneurship is about being the last man standing in your own game. Never give up on yourself. This is your dream, nobody else's. You are the one creating it, and you are the one who owns it. You are the one who will be rewarded along with every single person you help with your product or service. Hire the help, get the support, but stay true to yourself through the entire process, or it will be very, very easy to get knocked off path for months or years. I do not want that for you, and I know you don't either. Please feel free to connect with me. I love hearing your comments, insights, and talking with you. My Instagram is crystal underscore baller, that's K-R-Y-S-T-A-L, or you can email me at crystal at crystalwar.com. If you enjoy the conscious glow up, then I would love if you wouldn't mind rating the show as it can help me grow. And feel free to share this episode with a new entrepreneur in your life. Thank you for listening, and I will talk to you next time. Take care.