6 Things I Wish I Knew Before My First 6 Figure Year As A Coach
Having your first six figure year is one of the biggest milestones and most desired accomplishments as an entrepreneur in the online coaching, consulting, service provider, course creator space (if you’re in what I call “the online space” then you know what I’m talking about).
There’s a lot of self-worth and self-validation tied up in having a six figure year. Making over $100,000 in a single year as an entrepreneur in the online space has come to mean that you’ve “made it”.
You can find hundreds if not thousands of Business Coaches claiming they’ll help you make six figures per year or the oh so coveted “$10K month”, but what people don’t tell you is that making it to a 6 figure year doesn’t actually mean you’ll be able to maintain it (or want to maintain it in the same way).
This is what happened to me, and it’s why I want to share with you six things I wish I knew before my first six figure year.
1. Skill, knowledge, and experience don’t correlate to the amount of money you can make.
One of the biggest realizations I’ve had being in the online space is this: the people making the most money probably aren’t more skilled, knowledgable, or experienced than you.
I used to think that the people I saw making six figures, seven figures, and so on had some crazy amounts of knowledge, skill, and experience that I just didn’t have yet.
I thought they knew things that I didn’t. I thought that they had magic strategies, secret formulas, or some sort of insider secrets that I wasn’t privy to.
Obviously, that’s good marketing at work. They want you to believe that they have some magic answers that you need to pay them a lot of money for. But the more courses and coaches I invested in, the more I realized “Hey I actually know a lot more than I think I do”, and I eventually realized that the only thing they had that I didn’t have yet was a ton of confidence and a willingness to push themselves out of their comfort zone. Which leads me to the second thing I wish I knew before my first six figure year…
2. Confidence is more important than strategy.
Don’t get me wrong… strategy is absolutely important. Without a good strategy, it’s going to be difficult for you to get visible, generate leads, market your offers, and make sales. However, your confidence has to fuel your strategy.
Without confidence, you probably won’t execute a strategy effectively — especially as a personal brand! It takes guts to put yourself out there as an entrepreneur, and it’s even more anxiety-inducing when you’re the face of your business.
Also, people buy confidence. How you say something is often more important than what exactly you say. You don’t need the perfect sales call script, the perfect caption formula, or the perfect email welcome sequence. There are no perfect words and no perfect strategies.
3. There is no magical strategy.
When I first started my business, I was looking for the perfect solution and strategy. I was seeking that one thing that would instantly bring me clients and make me money, and I thought that there had to be something out there that I didn’t know about. I thought there had to be some magical thing.
But here’s the truth: there is no magical strategy.
There’s not one specific thing that’s going to instantly make you money and bring you an influx of clients. It doesn’t exist.
When it comes to strategy, everything works (for some people) and everything doesn’t work (for some people).
The way to get the most magical strategy is to pick the one that aligns with your personality.
You’re going to be the most successful with the strategy that leverages your strengths and what you enjoy. Don’t create a strategy you hate just because someone else is doing it.
4. Consistency is crucial.
I really believe that consistency is the biggest factor in success, and there are a lot of reasons for this.
First of all, you need to maintain consistency in your visibility, lead generation, marketing, and sales processes in order to actually grow your business. The more consistent you are with your efforts, the more business you will have coming in.
The second reason consistency is crucial to your success is this: the more people see you, the more they like you. This is a psychological concept called the “mere-exposure effect” that says the more familiarity someone has with something, the more they like it. This applies to you and your business as well.
The third reason is that the more consistent you are with your internal and external work, the more practice you have. We’ve all heard “practice makes perfect”, but I don’t believe in perfect, so I’ll say “practice makes better”. The more you do something, the better you’ll become at it.
5. You don’t need to (and shouldn’t) try to do all the things.
It’s easy to fall into the trap that doing more is better, but it’s not. When you’re trying to do all the things, be in all the places, and create a ton of offers, it makes it difficult for you to do any one thing well because your attention and energy will be split.
You don’t need to get caught up in the trap of the latest and greatest trend. There’s always going to be some marketing trend that you could try for your business (like Clubhouse, TikTok, reels, etc.), but you don’t need to and probably shouldn’t because it will detract focus from what you’ve been working on.
Choose 1–2 platforms to be consistent on at first. Choose strategies for visibility, lead generation, marketing, and sales that you can easily maintain and just focus on those. Like I said in points 3 and 4, there is no magical strategy and consistency is crucial, so just pick something and stick with it.
6. Build a solid foundation ASAP
My absolute biggest regret in my business was not building a solid foundation from the beginning. Make sure you have insane levels of clarity on your brand, your mission, your vision, your purpose. Put time, effort, and money into your online presence like your website and branding. Make sure you have a core, signature offer that you like. And get things organized!
These are all things I wish I had focused on in the early stages of my business, but I was too busy taking so much messy action that I just threw things together without intention.
My first six figure year was built on a very rocky, unstable, crumbling foundation. I didn’t have the systems or assets in place that I needed to keep scaling my business, and when I took a step back to look at everything I had created, I didn’t like any of it.
So what did I do? I restarted from scratch. So instead of continuing to make six figures per year, I made the decision to take a “pay cut” so I could build my foundations from the start with immense intentionality.
If I had just focused on these things from the beginning, it would have been much easier for me to consistently and sustainably keep scaling my business.
But with that being said I want to leave you with this… perfection doesn’t exist, so just do the best that you can in this moment and keep moving forward. Your action will compound, and nothing is set in stone so you can always change things (or even redo them like I did). Don’t let perfectionism keep you from getting started and staying consistent.
About the Author
Juliana Frisoli is a Success Coach & Business Consultant for women entrepreneurs who are the face of their brand. She helps her clients become well-known and well-paid industry leaders who stand the fuck out and make sales. She’s the creator of the ROAR Method™ and the Brand Authority Archetype™ system. Want customized strategy recommendations based on your personality type? Take the Brand Authority Archetype™ quiz and learn how you can most naturally and effortlessly stand out and attract clients online.
