This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Finally, a coaching service that I appreciate as someone who sees a lot of coaching services and often tends to be a bit skeptical. And you might say, well, why are you skeptical, Chris? I thought you're supposed to be, you know, a cheerleader and optimistic. And I am, you know, a cheerleader and optimistic. But my challenge with so many coaching services is they are just way too generic most of the time.
And, you know, I'm often like, what exactly is a life coach supposed to help me with? You know, life is kind of broad, right? Life is pretty all encompassing. Well, here's the thing. I would imagine that one thing a good life coach or, you know, any sort of coach would help you with is making decisions.
If you just think about that, well, throughout the day, we all make, you know, hundreds of decisions, maybe thousands, I don't know, all kinds of little micro decisions. But then, of course, lots of bigger decisions about our lives. And some decisions are bigger than others. So, you know, my thinking here about coaching is like, why not just cut out the clutter and do that? Like, don't try to be the coach for everything.
Why not just be the decision-making coach? And that is exactly what we have here today. So, welcome to Recital School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. After being asked by her friends and family to give them straightforward advice, this freelance writer decides to see if she can get paid to help other people make decisions.
And she has focused entirely on that topic, which I very much appreciate as mentioned. So, let's get into the story after this message from our sponsor, decision coach makes money by making decisions. [Music]
Nell Wolfhart has always been the person her friends and family have gone to when they need help making decisions. Throughout her life and different circles of acquaintances, she was known as the one who gave the best, most clear, and most straightforward advice. Nell says that this ability to make fast, good decisions is responsible for 90% of her success as a freelance writer.
A few years ago, she started to realize that other people, outside her friends and family, could benefit from her skills. She made up her mind to start her own coaching business that offered only one service, working with someone on a decision they were stuck on and guiding them to a place where they knew what they should do. Nell knew she was great at giving advice and she wanted to help people get unstuck from the endless thought loops of indecision. She called her idea to side and move forward and launched with a four-page website that was made for free by a friend. The only startup cost she had was paying for Squarespace, which at the time cost about $80 per year.
Now, I mentioned that Nell offers only one service, but in the beginning, she tried offering two versions of it. Clients could choose either the standard one session offer or they could pick a three-part series of sessions for bigger decisions. And this didn't work out quite the way Nell had hoped. She realized that the three sessions would just cause her and the client to spend more time on details and overthink the whole thing. So she got rid of that option and only offered one session at the cost of $67.
Traffic slowly trickled in. It was not an overnight success, but when Nell got her first client, she was thrilled. It confirmed her suspicion that sometimes people need a neutral third party to make decisions for them and that they'll actually pay for it. At first, most of her clients found her from her freelance work. Nell writes a column on a career website and this was a great business model for her.
She was writing to her target audience for coaching business and easily transferring some of that audience from one job to the other. That way she made money from writing the articles and sometimes even more money from directing them to her service. Not only that, but when potential clients discovered her by finding her as a column writer, Nell also had built-in credibility. Eventually, as time went on, she decided to invest a bit more money into her business. But still, we're talking a very small amount of money.
In fact, she spends a total of about $175 a year to keep the whole thing running. Compare these expenses to the $500 to $600 a month she typically makes from decide and move forward. In addition, as the years have gone on, Nell decided to increase her price per session. She became more confident in her skills and now charges $147 per session. These sessions last about an hour.
However, she never puts a time limit on them to ensure her client doesn't feel rushed. To this day, the success has come without any promotion at all besides writing her column. As it turns out, a lot of people Google the question, how do I make a decision and end up on her website? In just one session, Nell can help shake people out of a cycle of indecision and launch them on a new path forward. Among other things, she's coached people through how to break up with their partners, understanding whether it's time to change jobs and how to take the next steps on a big move.
Now that she's been doing it for a few years, Nell also gets new traffic from past clients recommending her. And even a small portion of her business comes from returning clients who now need assistance with another big decision. Until now, decide and move forward has largely been a passive side project. But Nell is about to meet a book deadline in February. And when that happens, she's planning to spend some time trying to grow her service.
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So, as I said in the introduction, a very specific and clear service, you know? And also if you take a look at her website, by the way, which you should go and see at decideandmoveforward.com, I think any coach or aspiring coach should look at this because it's so simple, has a really nice, vibrant design, but in no way does she ever do it. And that's another problem I see in a lot of coach websites. It's like, there's just so much stuff there. And here's my blog with lots of articles and here's a bunch of videos.
And here's some stuff that's sort of related, but not really. And if you look at this website, it's front and center about this one service, this one action. The copy here is like, ready to put this decision behind you and move forward, contact me today, let's figure out if a decision coach session is right for you. And then there's another tagline, the right decision right now. My only critique is at this price point, which I do think is a good price point, I think people should be able to just sign up and pay for it immediately on the website.
Whereas right now you just have to fill out a contact form and presumably she'll get back to you. Now, Nell may very well have a good reason for doing that, but I just think in the space of trying to make a decision, feeling indecisive, why not make it really simple for them? But again, great concept, great website. Reminds me a little bit of a friend of mine, Danielle Laporte. I don't think she does this anymore, but for a while she had these like business strategy sessions and she had found a way to brand these in a way that just stood out from everybody else.
And I think she was able to charge, I think it was $1,000 for these sessions, which were not necessarily that complicated. And by her own admission, she was like, I'm just trying to talk people through some common problems. But because of the process she had created, it was valuable to people. So lots of lessons to learn here. Thank you so much, Nell, for letting us feature at your service.
And listeners, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. Go out and make some decisions. I hope you do that today. Our show notes, including links to everything mentioned here on the episode are at sidehustleschool.com/13. We will link up Nell's website, anything else I mentioned.
And of course, I hope you'll also come back tomorrow. Be sure you're subscribed. Another episode coming out every day. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
