1:1 Coaching Services, Retreats, and Digital Downloads: Abambyh Business Coaching Takes Shape - Alison's Transformation Story, Part Three
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Back to the story of Abambyh Business Coaching...
Alison was devoting more time than she had anticipated to her business coaching. Though the month-to-month agreements with each of her four clients were loose arrangements rather than formal contracts, she was taking the work very seriously. Personalized growth plans for each woman and her respective business required a lot of resources and effort.
From March through June, she continued with her business coaching, until she and the women (with the exception of her original client) came to a mutual agreement to discontinue services. Immediately another woman came forward with the request for coaching. The need for what she could offer was clear, and Alison had been considering how to provide her expertise to more women while not being consumed by the work, something of which she would always remain wary. The one-to-one coaching was effective and valuable, but it was too resource-intensive to offer to many clients.
Alison decided that providing online educational materials in the form of a digital download would allow her to impart her knowledge more efficiently than the type of business coaching she had been doing. She started looking into how to make it happen.
At this point, she began having to make decisions about a large number of things she'd never before needed to know about. Alison was a Business Coach, specifically a Business Fundamentals Consultant. She was not a copywriter or a web developer. Those roles and what they entailed were completely foreign to her. There were so many choices, and she had no one to guide her. She didn't know where to start to find the resources she needed. It was overwhelming.
Eventually, she went to Upwork to find someone to design interactive online learning materials in which user responses would be collected and automatically combined. The result would be a populated, downloadable PDF that would act as a roadmap for where their business would go and how it would get there. This was what Alison wanted: a tangible reference guide that would allow business owners to implement the action steps they needed to take to see growth in their enterprise — a personalized business plan based on input from the user.
The creation of this was more challenging than anticipated. First, there was the sticker shock — this was going to cost a great deal more than she'd thought.
She had interviewed several people while trying to find the right person for the job, and at the end chose someone whom she felt she would be a good fit. He strongly recommended that Abambyh Business have a website on which the offering could be hosted. He also said that she needed a blog. Between the creation of the Wordpress website and the development of the course, not to mention finding a writer for blog posts and deciding on subjects for those posts, there was a great deal to be done.
Remember, all of this was new to Alison. She didn't know about Javascript, or hexadecimal designations for colors, or style sheets, or any of the dozens of other details about which decisions needed to be made. In addition to choices about the course and website development, she was scrambling to find out the best way to set up a business bank account, to learn how Stripe works, how to establish a professional business email address, and more.
In addition to suddenly having a great deal more on her plate, every step of the projects she was now undertaking incurred unexpected costs. She learned a great deal from endless Google searching, as well as the friend she was coaching, to try to navigate it all and ensure she wasn't taking on unnecessary expenses. "How do you do this?" she would ask. "Do you have to pay these processing fees?" She was shocked by it all. Paying for the domain registration, the email, the hosting.
Frustrations were not limited to the costs. Alison didn't know how to present her requirements efficiently to the web developer, who was not always clear when asking questions. There were miscommunications and inconsistencies, confusion and exasperation. Just the time zones alone caused issues with connection and productive conversation. Everything seemed fraught with problems. The contractor was also experiencing personal issues that he had to address, making him even less available.
Nothing was being produced. Alison had hired the web developer in August of 2021 (at approximately the same time that she retained an administrative assistant) and by October there was still nothing available. No website, no interactive offerings, no digital downloads. She was concerned about how long it was taking to get anything up and running.
It was during this time that Alison had another idea for how to achieve what the online material was meant for: the opportunity to reach out to and help a larger number of businesswomen than her 1:1 coaching could provide. While waiting for the web development work to come to fruition, Alison started designing Abambyh's Business Prompt Deck. The project was completed by the end of 2021, though printing and shipping would not become available until early the following year when the decks became available for purchase on Etsy.
Even with paying the contractor in installments rather than a lump sum, between his services and the creation of the Business Prompt Deck Alison had invested thousands of dollars. Abambyh Business had already amassed five-figure debt, and the business website wasn't even completed yet. She couldn't yet sell her educational downloads OR her prompt deck.
Again Alison was inspired to move into another direction while the web development continued. She'd had the idea for the RESTORE retreat while living in Guatemala City in October of 2021. The retreat was to be an incubator in which participants would be focused on business fundamentals and planning along with emotional intelligence training to combat limiting beliefs for participants, and would also include the restorative components Alison knew they needed.
She immediately began planning and setting up for the retreat, which was to take place in May of 2022. Once again she was making enormous investments in a business venture she hadn't even envisioned just a few months earlier. Just the rent on the Isla Mujeres villa alone came to $31,252.75 for the retreat — and that was only one cost among many on the expense sheet for RESTORE. Abambyh's business debt was now climbing toward six figures, she had yet to see any of the results she was working toward, and it was terrifying.
Alison was experiencing other struggles, too. It was around this time that the unproductive cost and work that had been put into the website came to a head. Alison and her web developer began mediation, attempting to come to an agreement about what would be done about the thousands she'd paid with nothing to show for it. It was a stressful time. She was feeling insecure, doubting herself — here she was hosting an elaborate retreat without even a website to lend her enterprise legitimacy and professionalism. Alison was definitely a subject matter expert on business fundamentals, and that fact DID lend her confidence, but imposter syndrome was still rearing its ugly head as she endeavored to align the disparate pieces of her business.
Alison put one foot in front of the other and persisted in achieving her goals and she ended up impressing herself with the results!
With...
- no business website
- no online courses
- having just started on Instagram
- and never having hosted a retreat
...Alison nevertheless ended up with fifteen women registered for RESTORE. They came from her natural market, from social media, and from referrals.
And the experience was absolutely incredible. The participants learned a great deal about how to level up their businesses. They established friendships that are still intact today. They made memories that will last a lifetime.
And Alison herself learned so much during RESTORE.
As with any large endeavor, much of what she learned was the result of facing unforeseen issues that arose. She ended up being sick the first three days, undoubtedly the result of stress and not enough rest. The transfer service she had hired to bring participants to and from the site of RESTORE — a business that had been suggested by the villa — was not as reliable or timely as advertised and required a great deal of hand-holding to get the job done. The schedule was affected by the weather, which also became an issue for the excursion she had arranged for participants.
But when all was said and done, the retreat was AMAZING. Real connections were made, attendees grew in both business knowledge and confidence, and afterward, Abambyh Business would be providing consulting services for those who knew they needed those services.
Alison had done it. She had brought her message to a group of women and they had taken it to heart. That message wasn't just about planning and follow-through for your business, it was also about confidence, self-worth, and respect.
And Abambyh Business had just taken a huge step into its future.
Written by: Tina Harmuth
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