Welcome to the Masterful Coach Podcast with Molly Claire, where coaches learn skill mastery, business mastery, and life mastery at a whole new level. If you are serious about creating a meaningful coaching business that makes a difference, you are in the right place. And now your host, master Life and business coach, Molly Claire.

Hey coach, you're gonna love this week's episode. Before we get started, I wanna make sure that if you are listening and you are a Life Coach School certified coach who works with moms in any capacity, you know that enrollment for advanced certification in motherhood and family life is open. Go to mollyclaire.com, click on advanced certification. There are only 12 spots and enrollment has just opened, so if you are interested, check it out right away to make sure that you can grab one of those spots before they're gone.

All right, coach. Here's this week's episode. Enjoy.

Hey coach. It is still coaching skill mastery month here on the podcast. I'm loving engaging here with you on this, and thank you so much for all of you who have been telling me what is working for you with the tips on Instagram as I've been posting them every day. I love reading how you're implementing, hearing things like, "This is exactly what I needed. This is exactly where I get stuck." so thank you for showing up so big in learning these skills.

All right, coach, today we are talking about referrals. Don't you love referrals? I want you to think about this. What if your coaching can be so good that that's all you need to build a profitable business. Your skills, your ability to help people. Now this probably sounds like a dream come true to a lot of you. I know some of you really desire to have a broader, bigger, expanded business, a membership, and really dial in a marketing funnel and paid ads and all of that, and those businesses are so fun.

And there are others of you that your dream come true is a referral-based business that is profitable. And here's what I'll tell you. In all truth and honesty, some of my very most successful clients that made the most money and the quickest, not that it's a race, right, because it's not, but I'm telling you, their businesses were highly referral based. And this came from three things, mastery of their coaching skills. I worked with them every single week on mastering their coaching, deepening their skills, expanding their skills. Not only did they have the competence, but they had so much confidence. So that's one.

Can you guess what the other two? I'll give you a hint. They are the other two foundations of this podcast, clarity on their ideal life and the kind of business they wanted to have. This is the work that I do in all of my programs. Anything you do with me, whether it's advanced certification, or whether it is my signature program where I help coaches with the foundational work, it all starts with having clarity on what you want in your life and business and grounding yourself there as you build and really honing in your skills. And then of course, we add in the other pieces.

And so, if you're listening right now and you're thinking a referral business that's profitable would be a dream come true. What I wanna tell you is it is possible. And today's episode, I'm actually gonna be talking with you about some key things for you to focus on, if this sounds amazing to you.

Because as I was thinking about recording today's podcast, I thought way back to the beginning of my career, I certified back in 2014, can you believe it? Nine years ago. And I thought back about how the expansion of my skills at that time brought so many referrals. And I've narrowed it down truly, I believe, to what you need to focus on. So listen, even if you want a big business, you want a membership, whatever it is, these skills are vital. And if you love the idea of a referral-based business, take note. These skills are it. Okay?

So first and foremost, make sure that you are able to establish a strong coach-client relationship from the beginning and all throughout. Those listening that are in my advanced coaching certification right now, you know this all too well, right? This is where we start in the program and we weave this all throughout every single week. We're literally revisiting how this comes into play.

When I say a strong coach client relationship, I don't mean a friendship, although certainly that can exist, but I'm talking about a relationship where your client knows they can trust you to be consistent. Your client knows that you are a safe person and a safe place to be, and your client knows that absolutely everything they say is held with absolute respect for confidentiality. And so really, truly having these strong coach-client relationships are the foundation for absolutely any progress.

If you don't have a foundation of a relationship with your client, your work is going to be, eh, partially effective, to be honest. You've gotta have that in place. And when it comes to really building a quality referral business, these relationships you will build with your clients and also with all the people you're connecting with are a huge deal.

All right, next up, validate your client by helping them to validate themselves. So next week actually, I'm going to be sharing with you more about how to make sure you are not falling into the validation trap. But I'm gonna give you just a teaser of this today because this is a big deal. So, your client will want to validate you and tell you you're doing a good job. And sometimes we really want the client to validate us. And next week I'll tell you why that's not a good idea.

But right now I wanna offer up this idea to you that as your client is creating success, as your client is noticing things in their life, as your client is becoming more aware of the things they want and how they plan to change, make sure you are always celebrating by helping the client to see the progress they're making.

This is very different than just saying you are doing a good job, but rather this is helping the client to see. "Client, do you notice that you are bringing more and more awareness to yourself? Client, do you notice that over the last few weeks you've been following through more for yourself? Why is that and why is that meaningful?"

And I'll tell you the reason why. This is one of these super skills when it comes to having a strong referral-based business is. When you validate your client and help your client, even beyond that, learn to validate themselves, that's when everything starts to change for them. I know some of you were on the webinar with me this last Monday where I was really talking about, especially as you're coaching moms and as you're converting clients who are moms, helping these women to validate themselves as a person, to validate the good in them is tremendously transformational.

And so when you can really understand how to help your client see themselves, know themselves, and validate themselves, everything will open up. And when someone has that kind of internal transformation, believe me, they are going to be sending people your.

All right. Next up, make sure that your coaching is always client-centered rather than testimonial-centered. Okay, maybe this goes without saying, right? But it can be easy for coaches to get caught up in wanting to make sure that their clients are getting a certain result that looks good on paper. And when you can throw that expectation out the window, that expectation that your client should do certain things to make your practice successful, that's when you make every single session about the client and the client's current needs.

Go ahead and just think right now, even you could write down one to three ideas. How can I make my coaching even more client centered? How can I understand better at each session what my client is needing right in front of me? How can I put myself and my needs outside of the session and make my clients' needs the only thing that matters?

All right, next. Own your coaching style. I know you're all trained in different modalities. Many of you are certified through the Life Coach school. If you follow me, you may have found me there. You all have tools that you know. Own your own style. Bring your own flavor. Develop your coaching style. This is another thing that I work on in every single one of my programs.

The Coaching Skill Mastery is a component of advanced training, as well as the others, and really helping you to tune into where your strengths are and develop them is a big deal because there are a lot of coaches out there, right? A lot of coaches listening to this podcast, and I haven't even scratched the surface. And so, when you can be uniquely you, that is when your client will have a genuine experience with you.

All right, coach. Ready for number five? My favorite. Love your client. Believe in your client. See the best in them, and help them do the same. Imagine what it will be like for your client when they feel that you genuinely love them as a human being, even seeing everything that you see in the sessions, imagine your client feeling this sense of complete belief in them no matter what.

No matter how many times they perceive that they mess up or they don't follow through, you still believe in them. And imagine your client always feeling like you just see the best in them. Can you imagine a better experience to provide for another human being coach when you can have trust, safety, and confidentiality in that coaching relationship? It will serve the coaching so well.

You can teach your client how to validate them self when you can always make your coaching client-centered, when you can own your own flavor of coaching, and show up to love, believe in, and see the best in your client. It is magic. All right, coach, that's what I've got for you.

Hey, listen. If you are a coach who works with moms in any capacity, enrollment for advanced certification in motherhood and family life coaching is happening now. At the time this is airing, I don't know if the spots will be filled. There are only 12. At this time, you must be Life Coach School certified first. If that applies to you, check it out. Go to mollyclaire.com, click on Advanced Certification.

Coaches best wishes to you as you hone in these coaching skills. Let's get those referrals coming in. Have a great day.

Thanks for listening to the Masterful Coach Podcast. If you're ready for complete support as you build your coaching business, check out Molly's collaborative community, the Masterful Coach Collective. It's a place where you'll have access to the best experts in the biz, community support, and guidance as you build your perfect business 90 days at a time. Visit www.mollyclaire.com for details.