Are You Working to Survive, instead of Working to Serve!

Executive/Business coaches, tell me if you've ever felt like this?

1. Struggled with the confidence to sell your coaching at a high ticket price (￡3000+).

2. Struggled to get clients (I have no predictable way to attract prospects into clients).

3. Struggled with managing all the business processes involved in running your online business? (Overwhelmed by all the tools needed to run your business, website builder, funnel creator, landing pages, setting up email automation, appointment booking software, payment processor, proposal and contract software, CRM, now there's ChatGPT you're trying to learn).

4. Stressed and feeling unfulfilled because you're spending more time managing your business and less time with friends and family, so your quality of life is being affected.

5. Working to survive instead of working to serve?

6. Discouraged that you could ever build a thriving business that allows you to Serve your clients at the highest level.

7. Is seeking a better work-life balance that serves your desires?

"Never again I told myself...never again...will I be in this position". As I paused looking at my computer, frustrated with myself and angry at myself, I was doing a very good job, too good of a job in fact, beating up myself that I was a FAILURE. I was failing as a husband, and father. I was beating up myself so good, tears rolled down my eyes, the sense of low self-worth took me by the throat and was strangling all the COURAGE and BELIEF I had in me. The tears just kept coming! What made it all worse, now I'm crying. Men are NOT SUPPOSED TO CRY FOR THINGS LIKE THIS, they should only cry when their favourite sports team loses an important game...makes no sense right? But here I find myself with all these conflicting feelings, struggling to hold it all together.

15 years ago, I married my beautiful wife, and not long after three little bambinos came along.

After the birth of our first child, it was time for my wife to return back to work, after some search for employment, I wasn't able to find any work, so my wife and I discussed she would then return to work, seeing as I couldn't find a job, and boy did I look.

I joined 4 agencies and emailed over 100 jobs, and not one opportunity came to me to say, "Mr Dantzie", we are offering you the position. We agreed I would stay home and home educate our first daughter, as both wanted to home school our children.

As time went on this arrangement became very challenging. The difficulty had nothing to do with waking up early to feed my daughter, prepare the food, change nappies, keep her occupied when she was awake, and neither did it become even more challenging to do this with 3 children at once. It was my PERSPECTIVE of SUCCESS my "version" of what it meant to be a "Man" and a "husband" and "father" started to make me feel resentment for "not having a traditional job". This feeling was in conflict with the investment I was making with my kids, for that's how I saw it. Time and personal attention, and caring for them, playing games with them, ALL DAY, filling their lives with love, support, attention CANNOT BE AN INVESTMENT that will not yield A POSITIVE ROI, IMPOSSIBLE!! But I would be lying if I said, there wasn't times I felt, I was a "failure" because I wasn't literally bringing any money into the household. Don't get me wrong, never did I want to make "more money" than my wife, I've never had that insecurity, my insecurity was, "I'm not making any money", and that's not right!

I began to search online for ways to make money, which in truth began when I returned from America, after studying there for 2 years, leaving early from a 4-year course, and again, I couldn't find a job, so decided to see if I could make some money selling things. My dad was into sales, so that's the first thing that came to my mind, maybe I could do sales. Fast forward into my marriage, I stumbled upon so many different methods, in 2008 about making money online, and after spending (and wasting - that's another long story) so much money on courses, one good thing that came out of that journey was I actually did ABSORB VALUABLE information along the way.

I actually made money through affiliate marketing, using SEO methods, when it was super easy to rank YouTube videos on page 1 of Google. Eventually, I watched a webinar that a way to make money is to sell your knowledge in digital marketing and start an agency, they pitched how it was SOOOOO EASY!!!! "Just sign someone up for ￡500 per month and sign ten businesses and you'll be on ￡5,000 per month, you ONLY HAVE TO SELL to ten businesses". Oh, they made it sound SO SIMPLE!! They never covered "how to sell", "how to find your ideal client", "how to create an offer" so your SEO service doesn't become viewed as a commodity like the hundreds of other SEO agencies at the time who are in the SAME CITY, who are going after the same potential customers you're going after. There were so many basic business fundamentals, they did not cover, like so many "so-called Online Business Guru's", let alone, they never covered "operations", handling payments, writing up proposals and contracts, hiring VA's or Staff, (expanding and scaling). Not a WORD was said about these ideas and concepts, and trust me I sat on HUNDREDS!! Chasing the "EASY and QUICK MONEY", that was my downfall (I could write another ten articles on this poor mindset). I later learned that these two words are THE MOST POISONOUS words when trying to make legit money and build a business. Anything worth getting, only become EASY and QUICK, when you gain the SKILLS and the WISDOM (which is gained after continual use - trial and error), then you can make EASY and QUICK money. Because you've gained the skills, the proficiency, and competence to move quicker, you're more able to seize upon opportunities that present themselves.

The positives about my experience so far is that "I DID NOT QUIT". Throughout all the mistakes, I did not abandon the idea, that I can make this work. Why? That will take another article.

If you've read till this far, you're wondering, "Michael, so why were you crying looking at your computer screen, what happened?"

Well, I was working on a website job for a client. I had created a really nice website design and was now building the website, things were going okay in terms of managing client expectations. The client had desired some specific features and changes to the shopping cart experience, and not being a coder, I had outsourced this part of the job, now this is where it ALL CAME CRASHING DOWN! The freelancer developer promised to deliver the work at a certain time, and they didn't, and that wasn't terrible in of itself, that happens. It was annoying and frustrating, but it wasn't that, that made me cry..and feel rubbish and question my life choices...LOL! It's that I needed these updates to be finished at a certain day and time, so I could take a SIMPLE BREAK to CELEBRATE the anniversary of my wife (yep, please don't shoot me, if you haven't been there, you won't understand. She was very understanding, as I explained what happned and apologised, and was honest with my feelings of how felt about the situation). Unfortunately the client at the time, was not patient, and wanted the delivery on the day I said it would be ready, even after I explained what happened (which it was their right), so I had to stay up all night to find another developer to get the last features finished. I felt rubbish, and powerless. That's when I said to myself "Never again I told myself...never again...will I be in this position".

So when I write those 7 questions, I write from experience, from a place that is ALL TOO FAMILIAR TO ME, and that's what inspired me to recently work on an Offer that is BORN from a place of real desire and need and purpose, a place that I CAN RESONATE WITH other Business Coaches, who desire to be in a place where they DECIDE when to stop working and take a break and do what they want, go to gym, spend time with the kids, family, friends or go on holiday for a break. Part of the reality to be able to be in that position, is the power of automation, and systems in place. Automation allows you to serve your clients with the best version of yourself, instead of working just to survive.

This entire experience finally lead me to develop The Automated Business Mastery, where "I help business and executive coaches achieve the work-life balance they crave in just 90 days, without facing endless administrative tasks, the stress of client acquisition, or the hassle of juggling multiple software for their business, so they can experience a thriving business alongside fulfilling personal lives."