A coach, a little bit like therapy, but not quite therapy. We do our best work when we're out of our comfort zone. As a mentor, I'm not going to waste your time suggesting that you explore or scope out something that I know from personal experience does not work. At the moment, I'm speaking to a lot of website designers who are saying to me, I've recently had coaching or I've had coaching in the last year. I know I needed to do something in my business and the coaching didn't work. And I feel like I'm burnt out. And I feel like I've kind of lost faith in how to run my business in a model where I can scale it, where I can take some more time out of it and where I can actually really enjoy it again. And I really hear you. I really feel for you. And so many people have been there. And I wanted to record this podcast episode for you because I wanted to say, don't give up. Please don't give up because there is the right solution for you out there. And I thought I would use this episode to walk through a few of the points in why this possibly hasn't worked for you and how we can turn that around. Hi, for anyone who doesn't know me, I am Holly Christie. I am the host of this podcast, Websites Made Simple. And I am a website designer, a website designers, mentor and developers. I mentor you too. And I am here to help you have the best career that you can have doing what you love. So let's get started. so the one thing that has come up is that people say about you know I went to work with a coach and I get it there are coaches everywhere I build so many websites for coaches I really do know like how that message is being put to us particularly freelancers all the time you need coaching for this you need coaching for that and it's really easy to fall down the spiral of someone's content and think, oh yeah, I really like them. I feel like I've got to know them. It's time to go and work with them. And one of the things that I would say people are probably in our industry making the first mistake with is that they're working with a coach instead of a mentor. And the difference between this is that coaching is very much you have your own answers and the coach is there to help you unlock them. And in doing that, they can help you overcome obstacles. They can help you do some brilliant things and increase your confidence and find these answers And it fantastic But when you a website designer the chances are that what you need is mentoring Where someone says, I've been where you are. I know what the industry is like. I know the problems that you're facing and whether that's growing your business or whether that's with a really sticky layout that you just can't quite get right. Or everything that comes in between with that. And that is what mentoring is. Coaching, they're not meant to give advice. They are meant to just listen and ask questions. And they sometimes will use work models and worksheets and stuff, which will help to kind of challenge you and stretch you and help you to really explore those answers. But they can't give you advice. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you will know that I give a lot of advice. And one of those things is because I am a mentor. So I can. And I've been you and I've lived you. And I don't want you to have to do that all by yourself and feel really at lost of it. Or I also don't want you to have the hideous experiences that I had along the way that kind of formulates that basis of this advice as well. What you won't know about me, because it's from qualification from even before my website designing days is that I trained in counseling skills as well. And so I also know how to really listen and use those guided questions as well to support you in being heard, in finding those answers and having the confidence that it's not just about saying, this is what you need to do now, go off and do it. It's about really supporting you in the best way that that works for you as well. I always say like no two websites. If I went and built a website and you went and built a website and we were using all the same materials, we would not build the same website. And that's the case with mentoring and coaching as well, is that you won't be getting the same advice. So when you work with me, you'd be getting the advice that really works for you and helps support you in getting to the next level, doing it, I would say within your comfort zone, but we do our best work when we're out of our comfort zone. But what I will say is that I can absolutely support you every step of the way with that as well. So a coach also doesn't have an industry specific experience. So they're not able to really take some of the issues that we face within the industry and really advise you on how to deal with that as well. And that's quite a big one because when you get a client come back and say, I don't like the draft of this website, sorry, or you know I don't want to stick to your terms of service or I don't this that or the other what you need is on the ground help then and there you don need someone saying well what do you feel your answer should be for that Or how did that make you feel You need someone who can say right okay what would you like the outcome of this to be? And for us to be able to go through and work on that outcome and get that outcome, achieve it together. As a mentor, I will support you to working to best practices all of the time. I am absolutely known for not cutting corners. And that doesn't mean that we do everything longhand all of the way. There are lots of tips and tricks that I can teach you and you know whether that's kind of cloning pages and saving containers and sending stuff up to the cloud and drawing it back down from the cloud and really kind of honing those practices. But it means that when you're working to best practices all of the time you know that you can be confident in not only what you are delivering to your clients but to the skills that you're learning and you're embedding as well. You know, once you start doing something really well one way, you will continue to do that really well all the way through. So I will support you in doing that as well. If you're a website designer or developer who's looking to strengthen your community, get expert advice and not have it take up all your time, I've got the solution for you. My Sparks program is a weekly group mentoring call for people working directly in the web design space where you'll get advice, support and collaborate with other designers. We meet each week for an hour and you'll come away with reassurance, knowledge and the next steps for your business. Check out the Sparks Group Mentoring at websitesmadesimple.co.uk. And going back to that point where I said about we all do things differently, we all run our businesses slightly differently as well. And as a mentor, I'm not here to say to you, you've got to do this like the way I do it, or you've got to use the tools I use, or you've got to do this, that and the other. I can, of course, make recommendations as to what tools I use. I think there's a podcast episode back in the backlogs, which talk to you about what tools I use, what the essential ones I feel are. But what I'm looking to do when I'm working with you is look at building on the stuff that's really worked for you. So you might think, right, I've got this set up nailed. This is what I want to work in. And then we're going to go and develop that and say, OK, that's brilliant. You know, how can we then bring that to the market in a way that's going to get you more business, that's going to keep your clients happy, that's going to feel very productive for you. And we all, especially because we work in such a creative industry, we have so many ideas and that can be for running our businesses as well as projects and things like that And I going to encourage you to scope out those ideas as well I work with coaches I had a coach a few years ago when I really wanted to level up She was absolutely amazing Every time I came up with an idea she would say go and scope it out And I would go and scope it out. And I would know which ones were worth pursuing because I would action them. I would take action on them. So we will look at doing that as well. And some of them will naturally fall by the wayside. So when you've had coaching in the past and you've said, I feel like I've been burned. I feel like it hasn't worked, all that sort of stuff. You're not going to get that when you're working with me because we're not going to get to a point where you feel like none of this is working and it is just hopeless. I'm going to really support you with some really industry specific stuff that's going to get you to the next level. And it works. Not only have I done this for myself, but I mentor handfuls of website designers and developers every year. And they've all gone on to grow their business. They've gone on to niche. They've gone on to get specific skill sets and they are all thriving and you can thrive too. Finally, with coaching, and you've probably had this, and it's just following on from the last point, is that coaches can sometimes gloss over when there's been something that's not worked well because they don't know how to fix it. And again, with mentoring, we can fix it because we're not going to gloss over. If something hasn't worked, we'll look at why it hasn't worked. If we're scoping something else and I'm telling you that's not going to work, I will also tell you why it's not going to work. And then, of course, if you want to then push forward and say, no, I really want to try and develop this, then we will look at the most viable and practical way of developing it together. So if you feel that you would like to give it another go, you would like to get back in the saddle and really develop your website design business, but you'd like to do it with some industry-specific support. You could look at my Phoenix program. That is a nine-month program for websites, developers, and designers. It is there to support them in leveling up, growing their business, making a name for themselves, and loving what they do. It's also designed to help you to be able to step away from your business a little bit so that you can make more money, but also have some more free time. If you're a little bit nervous of going into a nine-month program right now. I hear you. I totally understand why that would be the case. And you can book one-to-one mentoring with me through my websites as well. And you just go to websitesmadesimple.co.uk. You'll find everything you need there. And I would love to hear from you. If you've liked what you've heard today and you would like to explore this more, come to the website or get in touch. You can find me at hello at websitesmadesimple.co.uk. I would love to hear from you. Until then, happy designing.
