Intro: 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’re 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.

Molly Claire: Hey Coaches, you are going to love today’s guest. Elizabeth is an amazing example of a female entrepreneur who is doing work that she loves and that she is amazing at. In fact, Elizabeth is so good at what she does that as soon as we finished up the project that I’m speaking about on this episode, we embarked on another one.

And in fact, when this episode airs, we will be completing the final touches this week on our membership portal for our community membership. It is a community for coaches. And just as a teaser, there are going to be some of the coaching legends in there to be teaching you, training you, giving you guidance and help in life, business, and coaching. More to come, but for now, please enjoy this amazing interview with my good friend and colleague Elizabeth.

All right, Coaches, I am really excited to bring this guest to you today. I actually came in contact with Elizabeth because she was working with someone that was helping her to get on podcasts, ironically, and here we are. But what I actually did is I connected with Elizabeth because I was interested in the work that she did, I saw the sites that she designed and the whole idea of what she does, which I’ll get into in a minute and actually worked with Elizabeth over the last couple of months on a project, had an amazing experience and said, “Hey, let’s have you come on the podcast.”

So, I’m really excited to introduce you to Elizabeth. Especially as a coach, you’re always looking for easy ways to get help with getting your site up or doing a membership portal, and who is the best person to go to? And we’re always aware of the many costs of business set up as well. And so, Elizabeth is a great resource for you, whether you’re looking for help with a site or membership or tech support, or even if you’re just looking for guidance for more of a do it yourself. So, we’re going to get more into this, but I’m really excited to introduce you to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Averyanova: Yes, thank you so much, Molly. It’s an honor to be here and talk to you today.

Molly Claire: Thanks for being here. I’m always afraid to say your last name because I don’t like botching people’s names. So how do you pronounce your last name?

Elizabeth Averyanova: Elizabeth Averyanova.

Molly Claire: Okay. You say it beautifully. So, Elizabeth I would love for you to tell my coaches, first of all, what is it you do for coaches? Someone comes to you, what are the services that you offer and focus on?

Elizabeth Averyanova: So, I’m a web designer and a branch strategist primarily for online coaches, especially female online coaches and online entrepreneurs, course creators and industry experts who want to monetize your knowledge, but also make a bigger impact with that. And we love helping them create branded beautiful websites, landing pages, sales pages, the whole sales funnels, and course, and membership portals. So that is in a nutshell what we do.

Molly Claire: So much. And just before we started recording, Elizabeth and I were talking about how she’s been on vacation and how she’s so glad to be back because she loves what she does so much, it doesn’t feel like work. And I know that to be true from working with you.

Elizabeth Averyanova: I started my business 10 years ago. So I’ve been a full-time online entrepreneur, full-time designer for 10 years. And I mean, it’s my lifetime passion and calling, so it does not feel like work. I’m very happy to be back from holiday.

Molly Claire: Well, and I think you can sense that. I know just in working with you, I feel it was very clear to me that you–Not only that you love this work and want to do it well, but you want to take good care of your clients. And I know for me, sometimes I know some of you listening can relate to thinking that you should have more together on the back end of your business, or be a little more organized or know more than you do.

Technically, I know I have those insecurities come up and it’s like, every time I talk to Elizabeth, she’s like “Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it, I’ll help you, I’ll do this.” So it’s always nice to have that support when you’re running a business solo, so…

Elizabeth Averyanova: Yes, thank you. I think part of it comes from experience, but also my background and I can share a little bit, but my background is actually an architecture and I have a professional Architecture degree from Notre Dame. And I love that as well, that is still part of our business, doing architectural services.

But when I started doing branding and web design, it was about two or three years ago, because at the time I dove into a program to learn how to be an online coach. And it was not the Life Coach School, but I love it, but it was to learn how to be an online coach.

I eventually came full circle and tied that in with my design skills, and that’s how I ended up serving online coaches. But bringing in that architecture background, really allows me to see the huge picture in all the moving pieces. And you came to me and you–I think you felt disorganized or scattered, but we’re able to decipher all of that and actually, you were pretty organized.

Molly Claire: Oh my gosh, so organized.

Elizabeth Averyanova: I will tell you

Molly Claire: because I think that’s the thing is that we all…Well, most of us. I guess I can’t speak for everyone listening, but we all feel disorganized, right?

Elizabeth Averyanova: Yes

Molly Claire: It always seems we need more help organizing or putting things together, and there’s some truth to that. but part of it is really just feeling that way, and it’s nice to work with someone who can see the big picture and help you pull it all together and kind of lean on those strengths. And Elizabeth specifically focuses on helping you to build–Kajabi is the main platform that you use, yes?

Elizabeth Averyanova: Yes, that is our main focus, where we’re focusing our energy and serving people who use Kajabi to build their online business.

Molly Claire: But we are just talking also about how you do a lot more than that, but that’s so good to know. You talked about this a little bit, but how did you even get into this line of work when you started looking into becoming an online coach, what drew you to that? Well, that will be my first question then I’ll give the follow up question.

Elizabeth Averyanova: Okay, perfect. So, I was already doing design business for six or seven years at that point, so a couple years ago, so quite a long time already. And I feel like very much wanted a change of pace and a change of scenery.

And I was actually specifically interested in…I loved life coaching, but I was specifically interested in health and fitness coaching and, because my side passion when I’m not designing, is long distance running and doing marathon. So I was like, “Oh, I want to do that instead.” And just wanted to forget the design. I just wanted to change, so that’s that happened.

And that’s okay, that was a really great experience, but I ended up like, “Oh actually, I didn’t feel I had any real experience, as a health and fitness coach, it was just totally new to me”. And I guess it was so much, I just went back to design and my first couple clients were other people who were in that program, other coaches.

Molly Claire: Well, and I think what’s nice about that is—because you do have such a gift and so much experience with what you do and branding and pulling things together. But you still get to be in that space of working with coaches who are improving people’s lives. So, it’s kind of like the best of both worlds

Elizabeth Averyanova: Exactly. That’s how it kind of ended up. I got to do both, because if we do the design, but we also tie in a lot of strategy. And when you work with some of our colleagues, they also still need that guidance from a strategic point of view. So I kind of end up doing coaching through our work too.

Molly Claire: So I know you love what you do, but tell me why. What is it about what you do that you love so much?

Elizabeth Averyanova: So, I love creating beautiful things in the world. And I love how design can really make a bigger impact on the world, and good design can really change how people think about their life or how they act in the world or what impact they’re making in the world. And so good design, whether that’s digitally in the branding and web design space or courses or memberships or physical design through buildings and houses and spaces that we’ve designed in the past. All of that together just helps create a world where people can live more intentionally and with more fulfillment in their life. So, for me, I love it, whether it’s digital or the real world design.

Molly Claire: I love that. It’s so interesting because I definitely feel like for me, that is not my strong suit, as far as design or how to pull things together. Even decorating my house. I feel very inadequate in that space, and so, I don’t know. It’s just a good reminder to me, how truly we all have such different gifts.

And just in relation to my listeners, my audience, I know as a coach, you often feel like you’re kind of lost in a sea of coaches, but really we do have such distinct things that we are great at, and have a passion for it. And I love watching, as you’re leaning into this for you, how much it’s impacting people, and I don’t know, it’s just a beautiful thing. So…

Elizabeth Averyanova: Thank you.

Molly Claire: So what Elizabeth and I, the project we worked on together was my advanced Certification. It’s my training for coaches, who are already certified and who are in the mom space. So, motherhood, family life, that whole space. And I’ve had this pin–I’ve had this on my board for a couple of years, and I’ve been wanting to do it. And what was really excited to connect with you and bring this to fruition.

And so. Something really unique that Elizabeth does is, you do a VIP Design Day. And I want you to tell us about that, and let me tell all of you, when I saw that this existed, it was like, this was meant for me because I am someone who I like to dive in, I like to get something done, I like to move forward. And essentially what this is a chance for you to work in an intense period with a coach and just get it done, right? The website, whatever you’re creating doesn’t have to take months, you just pull it together and make it look amazing. So tell us a little bit more about first of all, what the VIP Design Day is?

Elizabeth Averyanova: The VIP Design Day, that’s our signature service, and our most popular service, where we do an intensive but efficient, but effective design process where we condense weeks, or possibly months into day or days, very short period of time. And it’s our design service where we will, for example: in one VIP Design Day experience, create a sales funnel where we will create everything from the sales page to the checkout process, to the membership portal. That’s what we did for Molly, everything from the initial sales page until somebody’s inside your program, and so the entire process for making the sales and onboarding the client is set up within this container of a VIP Day.

Molly Claire: Well, and actually, I want to ask the follow up question before I forget. Tell me, why did you decide to start offering this service in that way specifically?

Elizabeth Averyanova: It was inspiration, I honestly–two reasons. So, I saw somebody in the copywriting space doing this–that’s I got the inspiration from there. But there’s actually a longer-term connection with my background in architecture, bringing that, tying that in again, where in university years, I had five years of architecture studies. The process of designing the design projects were incredibly intense.

It’s literally exactly the structure that we do now with the VIP Day, it was extremely intense, an enormous amount of work where you’re working 24 hours a day in architecture school. You don’t sleep and days leading up to the deadline, it is just work, work, work, get it all done, work to the best of your ability, get as much as you can done for the deadline.

And then on the actual day of the final project, we had these large pinups, we had these incredibly large drawings at our school. We did everything by hand, and then we watercolored everything. So huge hand drawings and watercolors, and you have to stand up and you have to present, and at the end of the day, you have to give your presentation and your deadline.

It was a great experience, it was intense. That is literally how we structure our VIP Days. Now, where It’s condensed, you need to produce beautiful work, but be very efficient and focused with your time and I think it’s one of my strengths. So I was able to kind of combine these things like, I got the idea from somebody, but it was also tying on my strengths of how I like to work. And like you, I like to get intense and get it done.

Molly Claire: I know a lot of people feel this way, I think especially entrepreneurs, you get this vision and you want to move forward with it. And sometimes, I know for me anyway, it can be hard to be patient and sometimes a little frustrating when something takes a longer time. And to me, it just makes sense to focus on let’s use constraint, focus on one thing and get it done.

And for those of you listening, even if you’re not sure if you would want to hire Elizabeth to do this, keep listening, because Elizabeth, I know you have a freebie that you offer to actually help people if they want to build in Kajabi, first of all.

And also even just thinking about this idea that what are those things in your business, where you have a long timeline on them that could actually be more efficient. Because the thing about your process Elizabeth also is, it’s not like a rush job. You might think, “Oh, it’s done quickly. It’s just done sloppily,” but actually it’s not, you have a very specific process to make sure all the boxes are checked before you dive in, and it’s very thorough, right?

Elizabeth Averyanova: It is. You’re so right, and I should also mention which I didn’t, which is a bit unique with what I’ve seen in the online spaces. I have a team and we’re all locally based, and even today I had lunch with one of my team members.

So, I love that in person feeling, but together we, because we know each other so well, we work together so well. And our VIP days is–you’re not just booking one designer, you’re booking–I promise three or four designers together. And we have together know how to get it done.

Molly Claire: It’s pretty amazing. I’m curious to know how much of this–how long have you been doing the VIP Days specifically?

Elizabeth Averyanova: We’ve completed over 50 VIP Days as of now. And so about a year and a half, not too long about a year and a half, but we’ve done it quite a number of times.

Molly Claire: And I know if you guys check out–and I’ll have this in the show notes, but if you look at Elizabeth’s website and see some of her designs, some of her sites, I mean, they are beautiful. They’re elegant, they’re smooth, they have such a nice feel to them. But I’m curious to know too, why is it that you really like to work with Kajabi specifically with your clients?

Elizabeth Averyanova: It’s a good question because, like I mentioned before, I believe in niching down and at least in your marketing language, who are you talking to and who are you speaking to? I have loved Kajabi because of the audience and the kind of people and the kind of coaches specifically who like to use Kajabi. And it’s really good match between–it really helps me connect with those kind of people who are looking to build their knowledge based business or their courses and memberships or their coaching programs.

And Kajabi is one of the great solutions for that. So, that’s kind of where the match comes about, but what I can do like quite a number of things is just, like WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Click Funnels, Lead Pages. We can do all those things, but you have to niche down when you’re…It’s the same with any field in any business.

Molly Claire: And you were saying before, I think you did WordPress sites for what’d you say 10 years or longer?

Elizabeth Averyanova: I taught myself 15 years ago.

Molly Claire: So you know the ins and outs of it. And another thing I think that’s worth bringing up is, part of the reason, it sounds like why you like the platform of Kajabi is because it is very user friendly for people who aren’t as tech savvy.

Elizabeth Averyanova: That captures it good.

Molly Claire: So, and I know I’ve heard of more and more people focusing on Kajabi, but if, I mean really, if any of you are interested in this, you’ve got to look at her site because her designs is really beautiful.

I wanted to ask you also, and this is kind of more on the personal side but what have you seen to be the most transformational about the work you do with your clients? Because I think we all know right? When we find that branding that we like, or the look and we have the site, I think it impacts us as coaches in our business. So, I don’t know. Can you speak to that? Any of the things you’ve really seen as far as how this impacts your client, when they have this new design.

Elizabeth Averyanova: The biggest transformation is the confidence that you’re going to get when you are very clear about who you are and what your branding looks like, and how you’re going to speak online. But also, you have the system to back it up and you have a website to back it up. And you’re not afraid to send people to your website and you’re not like, “Okay, hi, don’t go to my website. It’s outdated.” You’re not in that position anymore. You’re like, “Please go check out my website.”

And then, you know you’ve got it strategically set up, that you’ve got funnels on there, or you’ve got a lead magnet on there that’s working, you’ve got it set up. And that overall confidence, I’ve seen in past clients tell me it’s huge difference for them.

Molly Claire: And I want to speak too, because I know that I’ve sent some of my coaches in my 90 Day program to you. And those of you that are interested in working in there with me in my 90 Day program, who either don’t have a website or are wanting to refresh, definitely connect with Elizabeth because she is not going to drain your bank account and I think that… what I love about what you do is I feel I hear this with my clients a lot. There is a lot of like mind drama and overwhelm about a website, because as you were speaking, right, it’s important to have that brand and to be proud of your website. And I think what I find is that coaches over analyze and overthink. And they think they have to have every detail in place before they get their website out there and they procrastinate and they actually drag the process out much longer than it needs to.

And so I think what’s really powerful about this work that you do is that, we can drop all of that. It’s not that complicated, right? It is not a big deal. Is it valuable to have a website you love and it feels like you? Absolutely, but it doesn’t take as long as you think, it’s not as complicated as you think. It’s really just taking that step to do it. right? Would you agree? I’m inviting you to back me up on this for anyone that’s stuck.

Elizabeth Averyanova: I absolutely agree because if you’re going to be stuck for six months or a year or longer, and those are clients that you are missing out on, and you’re not attracting that the take the time, the investment, whatever to do it right and get it up and running now, and you will…

Molly Claire: Yes

Elizabeth Averyanova: I can’t guarantee anything with anything, but you will probably make back your investment pretty fast, because you’re going to have your website effectively set up.

Molly Claire: Yes.

Elizabeth Averyanova: And we’ve seen it happen with almost everybody we’ve worked with. And you’ve got a website now that you can attract those clients now and not a year or two years from now.

Molly Claire: And I think, because I know when I work with my coaches in our 90-day format, it’s like we set a very clear goal. It’s similar to the VIP Day, right? And that I have–it’s like, this is an intense 90 days and we, unlike you working 24 hours a day in architect school, we don’t do that because what I say is like we’re going to come in, we’re going to do what’s most important. We’re going to get it done and we’re going to create balance. So that’s kind of the way we approach that 90 days.

But I always make sure if you–do you have a website? You either need the website or we’re going to start on your sales page right away and have the sales page and have the funnel and just dive in and get those basic things done quickly because they don’t have to take that long. And once you have that, absolutely you can get consultations and clients without having that.

And if you just dive in and do that, you have so much more there. And then you really it just—it does impact your confidence, right. And your ability to reach out and send people your way. So I got off on a little bit of a tangent there, but I guess I just want to…for those of you listening, if you don’t like your site, or if you’re like, I don’t have a place to send people or it’s too much, I promise that just taking that one step to move forward and having a place where people can connect with you online and see what you do is so important.

Elizabeth Averyanova: I agree. Of course.

Molly Claire: Thank you. I brought you as another voice to tell these coaches let’s do it, let’s get it done and in place. And so, and tell me just a little bit too Elizabeth about—because I know you love design, and I know that you put the sites together and you also…How much branding work do you do as well?

And I guess it depends on how you define that, but how much branding work do you do as you build the site?

Elizabeth Averyanova: Yes. So if somebody’s coming to us without a clear branding, we do go through a brand at least for the VIP day, like a mini brand strategy process where we dive deep on the things that we need to identify and know before you get to the visual side of things. That’s the strategy part, so before you get to the what’s called brand identity part, which is the visuals, the colors, the logo, the visual style, we got to figure out some groundwork things first.

And so that is a big part of…if it’s a VIP Day structure, it’s more condensed, but it’s enough to… we have a clear idea of where we’re going and who we are serving with your site?

Molly Claire: And then, and I’d imagine for you, as you are kind of building the look of the site as well, you’re bringing in the feel or vibe of the person or coach that you’re working with too

Elizabeth Averyanova: Yes, absolutely. And so I always like to know, and I have the discussion with the person, what are their goals for the next 90 days? Is a great benchmark. Like what are the next 90-day goals? The next six months and the next year or two-year goals.

Because we need to know where we’re going, even if we are not doing all, everything that’s part of the two-year goals, but I like to know, so we can set up things in the way that your brand or your website can grow with you.

Molly Claire: That’s so important. And I want to ask you, so for people listening, who are thinking that maybe they would want to dive into doing a little bit of this themselves and maybe build a Kajabi site, what would you advise them that their first steps would be.

Elizabeth Averyanova: I think you should test out Kajabi If you are thinking of building a course or membership, that’s a really great solution. Kajabi is not the right solution for everyone. I will say that it has to really fit your business model and your goals.

Molly Claire: Right.

Elizabeth Averyanova: And your offers. So, it does work really well for courses or memberships. Unless you have specific ways you want to structure it, but if you are thinking of– you’re like, oh, you just need a website and you’re not really thinking about a course or membership right now, you may not need Kajabi because it’s quite an investment, it’s quite a commitment. And so the best thing to do is to test it out and then test it out. And then, we have a really great resource of a free gift for you, which is a checklist to getting up and running with Kajabi and that can also be a great starting point to help you walk through. So, the checklist you can find…

Molly Claire: Well, we can put it in the show notes.

Elizabeth Averyanova: For sure.

Molly Claire: For sure and then, but also, do you have a… is there a place you can just tell them to go find…

Elizabeth Averyanova: Yes. So it’s on our website on the homepage box. It’s www.studioclassica.com/kajabi-checklist.

Molly Claire: Okay, perfect. And I will have that in the show notes, so you guys can find it there too. And what about if someone’s interested in potentially having you design, either something for a course, a membership portal or their site, what are their next steps to connect with you?

Elizabeth Averyanova: Yeah, we’re booking VIP days. Usually, we’re booked out in advance, certain length of time, so you need to plan ahead, especially if you have a specific launch you want to aim for. And on our website, you can find details on that www.studioclassica.com/vipday

Molly Claire: Perfect. And I can attest to this, that Elizabeth is…I mean, you’ll be upfront and honest about what you can offer. She’s not going to be willing and dealing, on like a sales pitch or anything, but really see about meeting your needs and really have your client’s best interests at heart, I think.

So one other question I want to ask, and then after that, anything else you want to offer to my audience. But what would you say to a coach who is feeling kind of stuck in their business, maybe stuck on anything either on what we’ve talked about, branding or moving forward with website or anything else, what advice would you give them?

Elizabeth Averyanova: It depends where you’re stuck. Are you stuck on attracting those initial clients? If you’re not attracting people, if you’re not attracting the right kind of clients that is speaking to your branding and your website and/or your lack thereof. If you’re attracting clients, but they’re not the right kind again, that’s the same reason. But if you’re getting on sales calls but you’re not booking the sales calls, that’s a different issue then talk to Molly about this and improve your sales skills, right?

Molly Claire: Yeah.

Elizabeth Averyanova: So, depends where.

Molly Claire: Well, I mean, I like that answer because it’s like I tell my coaches all the time, sometimes we can think if we don’t close a sale on a call, all of a sudden, our brain goes to “Well, I’m just a terrible coach” or “Oh, my website’s a wreck,” but actually it has nothing to do with what’s actually going on, right?

Elizabeth Averyanova: Yes

Molly Claire: And so, I mean, I think that’s true for each of you. Think about where is it specifically in your business where you’re stuck or not getting traction and why is that? And that’s the thing you want to solve for, right?

Elizabeth Averyanova: Yes, exactly.

Molly Claire: Elizabeth, anything else you want to share with my audience?

Elizabeth Averyanova: I think you need to get really clear on your goals with your business, and does your branding help you help support that? Does your branding and does your online website, does that help you connect with your goals and help you connect with those dream clients you want to work with? And if that feels–if you at all feeling like “okay, no, that’s not me,” You need to–well, you’ve already listened to this conversation by now, but you need to take a next step and take action in some way to help bridge that connection to–because then you’re really going to make a bigger impact in the world and really get to work with your dream clients and work with the kind of people you want to, and grow your business to the next level. So

Molly Claire: Definitely. I think there’s a lot of power in feeling good about your brand and your message and all of that. And just having a nice place to send people where they can see what you do.

Elizabeth Averyanova: Absolutely. It’s like your digital home on the internet.

Molly Claire: Yes. All right. Well, thank you so much, Elizabeth. And I’m telling you, guys, if you’re listening to this and you want a new site or want a little help, especially if you’re stuck. Check out her site and reach out to Elizabeth.

She and her team will take really good care of you. I had a great experience with her, I mean, I couldn’t believe how efficient it was.

We put together a six-month course and all the details, all the customer narrative front end, back end, all of that stuff. And it was just a really amazing process. So, she’s the one to help you bring it all together.

Elizabeth Averyanova: Yes. Thank you so much, Molly.

Molly Claire: Awesome.

Elizabeth Averyanova: Appreciate that.

Molly Claire: Thank you, Elizabeth. Bye

Elizabeth Averyanova: Bye-bye. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 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.