Feminine Business: How To Profit With Pleasure and Purpose w/ Rachel Anzalone
Rachel Anzalone is a dynamic force in the world of soul-aligned entrepreneurship. As an Advisor, Mentor and Satisfaction Strategist, Rachel pioneers the way for purpose driven entrepreneurs to expand their impact and profitability without sacrificing their health, happiness and well-being along the way. In this episode, Rachel shares insights on how to build a wellness business rooted in integrity and partnership. She emphasizes the shift from the transactional, profit-first mindset to a partnership-based approach, where both the business owner and the client thrive. Rachel also highlights the importance of focusing on long-term sustainability through meaningful relationships. Rachel shares personal stories about how these principles have shaped her entrepreneurial journey.
How to align your business efforts with your True Mission.
Why profitability and purpose are not mutually exclusive.
How financial abundance enables greater freedom and impact..
How treating business relationships as partnerships increases sustainability.
Strategies for crafting premium offers that align with your values and purpose.
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Music Credit: Nova by River Roots - https://www.youtube.com/riverroots
Podcast Transcript
Lou: Hello there, friends. Welcome to another interview episode of the Art and Business of Meditation podcast. Today we have guest Rachel Anzalone. I have met Rachel in person, so I'm so excited to share her with you. She is a dynamic force in the world of soul aligned entrepreneurship. As an advisor, mentor, and satisfaction strategist, Rachel pioneers the way for purpose driven entrepreneurs to expand their impact and profitability without sacrificing their health, happiness and well being. Rachel brings over 25 years of experience in the trenches of entrepreneurship, brick and mortar small businesses, corporate enterprises, and digital marketing. Not in her bio, but worth mentioning is that she has worked with a legendary motivational speaker, Lisa Nichols, who has a raving testimonial about Rachel's work. So I am excited to welcome you, Rachel. Thanks for being on the show.
Rachel: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.
Lou: So, Rachel, you talk about satisfaction and pleasure in your business, and I'm wondering, to start, what is the most satisfying part of the work that you get to do?
Rachel: I find so much joy in the creative conversations with my clients when we're really getting into what are the things that light them up. And when I'm in those conversations with my clients, what happens for me when I'm feeling their excitement is literally like maps download of how it could all be and how all the pieces could fit together. And that's so exciting for me. And the challenge is always to get people to that place and out of the what color should I use or what font should I use? Or those little nitty gritty tactical things. But when we get to that bigger picture, what really fires them up and what they're really excited about doing in the world, I feel like it's contagious. And that's what lights me up to.
Lou: Let's keep going with that. I'd love to hear an example of the map that gets downloaded. Is it just strategy? Is it like the vision for you? See, hey, you could do this thing. You could do this thing, or this is what this could be in ten years. How does it tend to show up when you see that for a client?
Rachel: Yeah, I feel like I'm a little bit of a translator. So many of the clients that I work with are visionaries, and they're very soulful. They have a real understanding of the impact that they want to have in the world, and they know what part of their work lights them up, and they get bogged down in the day to day and how to take that vision. And that feels very esoteric or abstract and turn it into something 3d that they can deliver on a daily basis over the long term. And so I feel like my role really is to help them take that vision and translate it into something tangible and help keep them from getting caught up in sort of what they see everybody else doing that they think are the, is the way they have to do it. And so what that looks like in terms of that download map is like you talk about, you know, your vision for impact and the things that light you up and excite you and I'm seeing what that looks like in 3d in terms of your message, your offer, how you deliver it, how you put it out in the world, how all those pieces fit together for a really well orchestrated business versus just individual sort of things that are getting chucked out into the world. That happens a lot.
Lou: You mean like, hey, I'm just going to try this thing and try this thing and try this thing and do this thing and I'll be on social media and I'll put that thing, oh my gosh. So this is my life to a t is like all these different things and I actually have talked to met like a few different business coaches recently and, but I feel so this is a great question because I feel just like this multi passionate creative energy of wanting to do this thing and have this thing going and I have this offer and I have that thing but when I talk with someone, let's say of, hey, like, hey, I see people, you know, and I'm about the long game for sure. Like we're, I'm in this for, for the years and years and years so there's no rush. And you know, I'm feel like for me, I've been at a revenue mark of like six figures to like 120, you know, a little bit each year but it's been pretty like stable in this frame and I'm like, I have no idea how, you know, not that I need it to go to like double and all the things, but I see people doing it and so like I asked a business coach who's been on this podcast, Ophir, and he told me to really get clear on what is your proof of concept and to dial down to the one thing and just my mind goes, probably not gonna do that. I think I'll just keep my stable, this stable income because I want to do many things. I'm just curious if you have to get my own coaching session here but because I can know people listening are that multi passionate, um, creatives and I'm sure you've worked with people like that and maybe are one yourself, too. Like, how do you. Is it necessary to just dial in? And how would you navigate that kind of conversation with someone?
Rachel: Yeah, I think the important thing to remember is that, um, not now doesn't mean not ever. And so if you can make the choice to focus on one thing and do that one thing really well for a little while until it picks up momentum and you've refined it to a way of delivery and a way of sales, that now all of a sudden, you're generating more revenue with less time. Now you can do that and then go to the next thing, and then you dial that in, and then you go to the next thing. So it doesn't mean that you have to deliver one training or one course or one offer from now until the end of time and only that thing. It just means that if you focus on that one thing for a short period of time and really get it dialed in, then all of a sudden it's going to be easier to do the next thing and the next thing, and it's all going to compound instead of spending a little bit of energy on ten different things where you then don't actually end up making progress anywhere.
Lou: Yeah, it's like reminding me of the, I guess, metaphor of getting a rocket ship out of space or something. If you're just putting a little energy into a bunch of rocket ships, maybe it's not going to get to that orbiting place where things can just kind of move out there so you don't have to name names or anything. But I love just hearing examples of if someone were to come with multiple things, how do you help them find the thing? And again, it's contextual, I guess, obviously, to find the one thing that they can put that effort to, or if someone's listening to this saying, hey, I have multiple things, how could I start to find the one thing to, like, okay, really focus on for the next however long it takes?
Rachel: Yeah, I think the first thing is to really figure out what your mission is, your true mission. And often what we find is that we're doing all these things because we can, or because somebody asked for it, or because we saw maybe there's a need for it in the market. And they're not necessarily all driving towards what that one big, clear mission is. And if you can figure out what that one really, you know, what your passion, what your purpose is as an individual in this lifetime, in this work, then how you get there starts to become a little bit less relevant and you start to lose attachment to the individual mechanisms or the individual things that might get you there. And so, let's say, for example, I don't know, do you have for yourself a mission or a big picture goal that you really see, like, what your purpose is in doing the work that you're doing right now?
Lou: My North Star, it's pretty general and somewhat cliche in some ways, but has always been to, like, inspire to be a person through what I do that helps people see and connect with their own spirit and letting that guide them in their life. So it has always been a bigger scale vision, like, millions of people. And in some ways, I've. My meditations have reached millions of plays. So it's like, wow, I've kind of done that in some ways. Like, meditation has been my medium to inspire. Um, and so it's. Yeah, it's always been that to, you know, there's, like, I could say more words on it, but the core mission is to. To inspire, not. Not necessarily to teach someone anything, not necessarily to give them special information, necessarily, but to, like, be a. Help them reflect back and say, oh, yeah, there's something in me that either remembers this of myself, speaking of who would be listening? So I don't know if that's too broad of a purpose, but that's always.
Rachel: It's perfect, I think. So if you take that, if you hold that as your north star, and then you say, okay, the way that I'm currently working towards achieving that is I have a podcast. I do one on one teaching sessions with people. I do group courses, and I have meditations on the. Oh, I just forgot the name of the app.
Lou: Insight timer. Yep.
Rachel: Insight timer. And I actually, I listen to it, and I meditate with you many mornings. Oh, I listen to your morning gratitude meditation.
Lou: That's great.
Rachel: And so if you look at it and you're like, okay, I have all these things, and they're occupying all my time, and they're all with the intention of moving towards this one north star. Right? Then when you start to look at them, you go, oh, well, when I do the one on one work, I'm only impacting a single person. When my goal is to impact millions. Is there a way that I can do less of that and more of this, more of something that has a broader reach and a bigger. A bigger. A bigger step towards that goal? And what starts to get uncomfortable is often the thing that has the lowest reach is the thing that's making the most money. And yes, yes.
Lou: Ding, ding, ding.
Rachel: Yes. And so you have to make the choice to let go of the short term safe income, the safe piece, in order to give yourself the time and the space to go do the bigger thing. And so this is very much what Dan Sullivan talks about in the book. Ten x is easier than two X. And that book came to mind when you were saying, I've sort of been at this plateau and I don't need to do more, but I kind of look at what other people are doing. And so I would just put, pose the question like, is it really about need or is it about want and desire? And maybe that's okay to say, I don't need to do more, but I want to do more.
Lou: Yeah. No, there's a. I like to use personality typings for just a self understanding. I think it's important to understand ourselves and our ego in a way, and our ego can serve the mission. But as an enneagram three, I have this insatiable. It's sometimes not great because I can't fully just appreciate and slow down, but I have this insatiable need, this striving. And so it's trying to come from honoring this part of me or honoring that I can do this. There's an opportunity here. I feel like I was made in some ways to do this. How can I serve that but not do it in a way that is just creating suffering in ways like, where it's like, I'm not enjoying the process. So I'm gonna. That book has actually kind of been in my awareness a couple times recently, but now you're definitely inspiring me to check it out. Um, so maybe let's circle back on this as well. We'll talk more about, like, you know, building and coaching and the work that we're doing. But I just love to hear, rachel, like, how. How do you get into the wellness industry? Like, how do you find yourself to. To doing this or interested, um, in this type of stuff and helping people in this type of stuff?
Rachel: Yeah. My beginning as an entrepreneur, my first venture was as a naturopath. And, um, and so, you know, I had worked in the hospitality industry for probably almost 15 years, primarily because, you know, I grew up in a rural resort town where what you did was get a job at the resort or a restaurant in town. And so that's sort of what everybody did. And I just fell into it, and I was pretty good at it. And. And I did that for a long time, including running some pretty big operations. I worked for one of the biggest restaurant franchises in the country. You know, running seven locations and managing some big teams. And so I had all this business experience and some marketing experience in that world, too. And I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do with my life. I knew it wasn't my purpose. And I had been interested from, gosh, high school. I was starting to read, and I didn't grow up in this culture at all. I somehow found my hands on books about personal development and holistic wellness and yoga, and I really started to engage in learning that stuff for myself just on my own. There was nobody leading the way. I was sort of blindly heading down that path myself. And so I sort of was interested in a holistic health and wellness. And probably somewhere around my mid twenties, I decided that I wanted to do that as a career. And I looked at my options to train. And it's kind of a weird world. There's no licensing in most states. The training is very obscure. You know, it's a lot of mentorship. It's a lot of. A lot of, yeah, unverified training and information. And so I picked what it felt like the best thing for me. I trained to be a traditional naturopath, so I trained in, as an herbalist and reiki and a number of other things. And I went down the path that I knew, which was to open a small wellness center where I was selling some supplements. And I was seeing clients and renting space out to massage therapists and sort of some other practitioners. And pretty quickly, I realized that I did not like the work, that I didn't like showing up every day at an office, that I didn't love the dynamic, which was very much at the time in the area of the country that I was in, I was in Ohio, near Cleveland. You can even buy organic food in the grocery store. So this work that I was doing was completely foreign to the people around me. And the people would come in and they were expecting or wanting me to act like a doctor and just tell them what to do. And it felt really disempowering, and I just knew it wasn't the right thing. And so I also realized that I really loved the business and that I was kind of a nerd for the business and the marketing stuff, and that most of my peers were really brilliant and skilled at what they did, but didn't have that, that experience that I had. And I just, I ended up coaching my peers and their businesses. And that was sort of more fun and more interesting to me than doing the actual holistic work. But it gave me a really good. Some really good insights that I think are, you know, probably relevant to your audience, which is there are so many really big hearted, really talented, really capable people in this world who have a really uncomfortable relationship with making money and charging for the service that they provide because they'd like to be able to just do it for free. And that there's sort of a culture of ambition is a dirty word. And so I feel like it's my mission a little bit to change that.
Lou: Yeah, I love that. I've been saying this to, I guess, who have I been saying it to? I say it to myself, I guess, but I know it as a personal mantra in some ways is finding this balance between ambition and appreciation because I'm like you, I'm a very ambitious person and I think that's great. And yeah, the balance of appreciation, I think we can walk that rather than going too far in the one way or too far in, hey, I'm not going to have any ambition. I'm not going to take any initiative or want to build something and I'm just going to focus on the craft, which is great.
Lou: Well, first off, I love that you have actual business experience that's not just coaching. I feel like there's some business coaches out there and maybe I'm one of them, too. I'm not a business coach. So hold on, let me backtrack for a second. But there are business coaches out there in the coaching world that they really only have experience in a coaching specific business. And I think that's okay. But I think there's something that I appreciate about you is that you're actually bringing this expertise from brick and mortar businesses. It's a little bit more wide and I'm curious how you find that applying to your clients. How did that experience of just being able to work in this type of marketing, or does it translate to the specifically, like the online space? Let me just separate online versus brick and mortar. So, yeah, I'd be curious.
Rachel: Yeah, I mean, in terms of marketing, when I started my own business, I really dived into the digital marketing world as well. And it was maybe a little easier for me because I had this foundation in brick and mortar marketing and so I understood it. I wasn't starting from zero. And really the bulk of my experience with marketing is digital marketing and has been over the last 15 years in the, you know, online business and coaching industries. And, and what I would say in terms of what I would say in terms of marketing coaches, business coaches who are focused on marketing if their only experience is in selling marketing, then you need to be very cautious that selling a business training course or selling a course to teach you how to maximize your instagram or something, how you sell that is very different than how you sell a meditation course, and it doesn't translate directly. And I think often that that's an area of oversight that we can look at somebody and say, oh, this person's wildly successful in their business. Well, their business is teaching people how to make money, not how to be in deep self care. And those are going to market very differently. In terms of the business stuff, what's really interesting is, first of all, I think that if you are a business coach and you're coaching people how to have a coaching business, I think that's fantastic because it's very industry specific. And there are things that, you know, you need to know about this industry. You know, how things are packaged, what people pay for, what the value. You know, there's so much that's very industry specific. Where I see there starts to be a little bit of a breakdown is once you get past the six figure mark to now, I need to build a team and I want to scale, and I want to figure out how to make this a bigger business. Or suddenly my business did get bigger. There's so much to be learned from the brick and mortar world that is applicable to that, that a coach who's just a solo coach with a va may not have the understanding of how to read profit and loss statements when they're complicated, when it's not just I sell a service and I have a laptop. Right. Like, when it starts to get really complex. Um, and some of those traditional business things, those are the places where you really have to have some other business experience to really understand how to go from, you know, a small solo entrepreneur venture to something sizable.
Lou: So the coaching, wellness, personal development industry is kind of like the Wild west, as I've talked about with other people. And I feel like in some ways born, like, I'm a cowboy in this world in some ways. Meaning, like, I feel very, it feels very natural to me. Like, I love the, the lack of rules. It just fits my demeanor quite well. And I just also, and I don't say this haphazardly, just to be like, I'm not going to listen to anyone and you know, that, like, you know, in a way that causes harm or anything, but I say it because, one, I feel in a position to want to really fight's not the right word, but be a voice in this space, in the way that I can and to really, you know, have a message of connecting back to why we do this work. At the heart of it, because I guess my judgment or critique could sometimes be is that it just becomes all about the money and it's like, hey, needing to hit this revenue goal and this revenue goal and this revenue goal and it's like forgetting that, why did you get into this? And maybe some people get into it for money and go for it. That's it. But I think the people and the people that I want to speak to are the people that they can't do anything else but something in this where they're feeling that calling from God, from spirit that something's moving through and needs to express. And yeah, I feel kind of really in my purpose being in this space. And I'm just curious, as someone with more experience, years more experience than I do, what are the trends that you've seen in the wellness industry coaching industry in the past 1015 years? You know, what, what do you like? What, what do you, if there's anything you don't like, like what has changed, what are opportunities? So you're welcome to take that question in any, any way that you'd like.
Rachel: Yeah, I think I was reflecting on this recently and I think one of the things that the trend probably ten years ago or so was all these really big hearted people coming in and the only people teaching online business and marketing were coming from a very aggressive, like, bro marketing, like chase the top, chase the revenue, hard sell, that kind of culture. And so many people got sucked into that world and then spun around and spit out and they were like, I don't want anything to do with this. Right. And what I think is really beautiful that's happening now is there really is a movement towards more aligned integrity. I'll even say, like feminine based approaches to business and marketing. And, and simultaneously there are people who got burned who are really cautious still about it. Like, is it actually possible? And, you know, and I've had some clients over the years that the shift into doing things differently in a way that really feels good to them is really about their I choice to let go of the belief that the only way it can be done is the way they learned ten years ago. And I really believe that if you want to build, if you want to create anything in a way that's really in integrity and in alignment for you and you go seek out examples of that, you can find it anywhere. The thing is, is that the people who are doing that are not the loudest, shiniest people. And so you're going to have to go find them. You're going to have to do a little more work. I know some brilliant business coaches who, like you just wouldn't even know who they are. And they have a wonderful business for themselves. They have a waitlist. They are happy. I'm a huge fan of right. Sizing business. If your business at $120,000 feels perfect, then great, then that's what you should do and you should enjoy it. If you feel like there's something bigger, you know, if you feel like you really want to be having, you know, a business that is doing 500,000 or a million or, you know, whatever that looks like, that finding the way to do that for yourself is what's really important. And not, um, not following some sort of cookie cutter pattern. And. And that's probably one of the biggest issues I see, is that there's a lot of cookie cutter blueprint stuff happening and promises being made and there's no guarantee of anything. And there's so much nuance for every single one of us that you can't go buy a blueprint and expect that you're going to get the results that somebody else got because there's too many variables.
Lou: You mentioned feminine ways of doing business, and I'm sure people listening would, and I would love to hear, like, what the examples of that look like if I were to operate in that way in my business.
Rachel: Yeah. I think the biggest factor is really treating everything like a partnership. I think that in the examples of capitalism that we currently have, and, you know, particularly in the online marketing industry, as you described it, it's sort of this like, prey and predator relationship. You know, even the language we use, it's very much about, like, getting the lead, getting the sale, get, you know, it's a colonizer's mindset of, like, I'm gonna conquer this market. I'm gonna, you know, all, all of that.
Lou: Yeah.
Rachel: And if you shift to a perspective of everything's a partnership and we're here for a mutual benefit, then, and you apply that to every relationship in your business. And that means prospective customers, that means existing customers, that means peers, that means contractors, that you might hire employees, you might hire that. If you really look at everything from the perspective of it's a partnership, then it shifts the way that you're approaching all of the work because you would never take more than is reasonable. Right. You would never force someone into a situation that didn't work for them because you care about them like you would your partner. Your husband, your wife, you know?
Lou: Yeah, I love that so much. It's so, I think that's such an important frame to come at it with. And it's so easy to see, especially when you're dealing with a group of numbers. Let's say an email list to most people is a number that they have on their list. And so it's like, well, I need to be converting 5% of this. If they click this, it's like, that's going to get this, and I'm guilty of this, too. And I realized, I was, realized that I was kind of forgetting in some ways that no, every person's a human being that is going to open this email. And so having that thought, having that mindset, that feeling of just that, realizing this is not a lead, this is a person, they don't owe you anything, that you're there to serve them. I just love the win win nature. I fully believe that there's so much more, enough to go around and that real good business and growth is like these long term relationships. I love being in communication with people on my email list that I've been connecting to for years. They'll respond here and there, and there's a relationship through that medium or people that I'm working with or people that come on this podcast. When people find their coach through this podcast and go, go in and find their people. And to me, that brings me, that's so rewarding. As someone who wants to in some ways be like a platform for other people, the more that I think about it, I want to create the place where a lot of people can come and find the people that is going to serve them and serve the whole. So I love how you talked about and I encourage everyone listening, thinking, how is everything a partnership? How is this going to be a long term relationship? Can I treat this as if this person will be around and I want this person around in ten years? How would I respond to this email differently? How would I not try to pitch them on something so quick or whatnot? I think that's really, really valuable, helpful.
Rachel: I want to add a caveat to that because I realize as you're speaking that it's probably more likely that your audience isn't being aggressive.
Lou: They're probably not.
Rachel: They might be on the other side.
Lou: You hard sailors out there, I know you're, you're driving them home. You're getting to their bank accounts. I know. I know you guys out there.
Rachel: Yeah. And so the, so the overall point really is that you don't have to hard sell and you don't have to be aggressive and you don't have to sort of use these sleazy sales and marketing tactics. And also if you go, oh, I'm just going to treat everybody like maybe they'll buy something from me 15 years from now, and I'm just going to hang back and see what happens and just be giving love and that's it. Then you might not be able to pay your bills and then you can't do the work and then you're losing focus on your impact. And so I really, I think it's about finding the sweet spot for you, which might be different for each individual person of, you know, how am I actually making progress towards that North Star? To have the impact that I want to have and to fulfill my life's purpose and doing it in a way that feels good and hiding out because you're afraid to do sales and marketing is not the way you're going to get there.
Lou: Love it. Rachel, you know my audience more than I do in that way. And so you, you mentioned this on your inquiry that we discussed that it's important for people to become profitable and abundant and so maybe speak more to why that is, what that looks like and where that comes from.
Rachel: Yeah. So first I would say that if you are a person who is doing this kind of purpose driven work in the world and you don't feel like it needs to be your source of income and you're happy to have a job and do this work, too, then that's fantastic. Like, there's no judgment around that in any way. And if you're a person who feels like, I don't want to go to a nine to five job and do something else, I want this work to be my work in the world, and I want it to be the thing that allows me to live and have an expansive life, then it is, it becomes really important to understand what profitability is, how it works, to understand the numbers within your business and to understand that profitability, financial abundance, creates freedom that then allows you to live your purpose. And that if you are operating constantly from a place of need and just getting by, then there's no way, if you're in the energy of need, that you are contributing to the world in the way that you could as your highest self. And so I really believe that creating profitability, creating financial abundance through the work that we do in the world is the way that we create impact. It's the way that we, that allows us to keep going and to reach more people and to have a bigger impact, whether that's through your work or to have the means to donate to causes that are important to you, whatever that is in the world that we live in, that requires some cash. And so thats kind of the bottom line of it. And if you have a business thats not profitable or youre constantly stressed about the finances of your business, then youre not living in your highest power, and youre not contributing at your highest good.
Lou: I remember when there was a big shift in my business in end of 2020, early 2021, and it really came from hiring a coach at the time and feeling like I was letting myself receive more. I'd raised my rates. It wasn't crazy by any means, but they were more than what. And let's say I think I was charging like $100 or something per session, and I just went to like, okay, I'm gonna do a package now. I think I had option was either you could work with me for three months weekly. What was it? It was only like, it was either like three months, $1,800 if you worked weekly, or blanking on it, maybe a little bit more, like, I don't know, like 180 a session if you were to break it out. So, but still shift to that kind of package model. And I remember I did that, which felt like a big stretch for me at the time, and, but then I started receiving more clients, and then I started feeling this, like, whoa. For the first time in my journey, which has now been five and a half years of figuring this out, I felt like there was, like, some room to be, to exhale and, like, ha. There was some freedom. And that what that did was swell up this, like, heart that just wanted to give for free like that. That gave me so much energy. Like, I. Cause I felt like there was actually financials coming in at a level that was not just getting. Bye. That. Yeah, I just remember that time so specifically because it was a year, I went from fifty k to one hundred k. So, like, that year is such a big, such a big shift for me that there was just so much more freedom in that. So I'm really glad you said that, because you made me remind myself of that time. I charge more than I did back then now. But I think this is the constant thing that I'm always curious about as far as, like, pricing and how to find your sweet spot. And I know people that I work with and are in groups of mine and clients that, and I guess it's working out in the world where people are doing like a per session sort of exchange with their time. And as someone who's seen a lot of people in this work, Rachel, I'd just be curious your thoughts of have you seen that work sustainably for practitioners in a way where they're doing like, because the way that I think of it, it's like you have to do so much marketing to keep people coming in just for one session. Like, I'm going to come and do one session with you. I'm going to do one session with you. If you're charging $150 for that session, it just to me, and I don't know, I'm not the, I'm understanding it. I have some expertise just from my experience and what I see. But for what you think, just to ask like directly, like, do you think that model works for anyone? Or to way to actually get profitable is to like, hey, let's create a package. Let's decide really what you're focused on and let's just focus on that rather than, hey, I do energy healings, or I do. So a lot of people in this industry, at least in the meditation kind of healing world, they'll have energy readings, healings, and then they'll have like three different things that you can pick all at like an hourly rate sort of thing. And I'm just, I don't know if that works. To me, it's like, it feels like it's going to take a lot. So I'd just be curious on the nuts and bolts of, like, if you've seen that model work or would you encourage people to try to think of, well, what is my package that I can offer that where I use all these modalities in the package, but it's not this constant. Someone's going to just find one session and then I'm going to have to keep bringing people in. Do you get the sense of what I'm saying?
Rachel: I do. I think there's a few different things going on there. One, I would say, let's say if we used your example of somebody who say, does energy work, bodywork energy work, and so when you land on their website, their rate is $100. We'll just say $100 for sake of ease. It's a $100 for a session. And that could be an energy work session, it could be a body work session, it could be a coaching session, it could be a hybrid, whatever. And there are plenty of people out there operating this way. Probably 90% of body workers even get a move away from the wellness industry a little bit other service providers to get a haircut, to get any of these services. It's like you pay for the one and you book the next one when you're ready. And to figure out if that is a model that's going to be sustainable for you. What I would do is the math of how many sessions do I want to do in a day, in a week? What is the like, what's my capacity? What does that then translate to in dollar amounts? And what would I have to do to generate the business to have a full calendar? Now, if your goal is to not be doing ten sessions a day, five days a week, plus hustling to market in order to, you know, make a certain amount of money, then like you said, you need to kind of recalculate that and reassess. And so shifting to like a package model makes perfect sense. And shifting to a group model might make sense, you know, shifting to just higher leveraged ways of doing things. But it's entirely about, again, like the right sizing of the business. Like, what do you want to be doing and how do you want to be working? And so if you're in the very, very early stages of your business, the goal might be to just book five sessions a week and do five sessions and get paid for those five sessions and like, get that foundation there. And then you start to do the math of like, okay, well, I'm doing five sessions a week. I could probably do ten, but I can't do 20. Right? That's too many. So now I need to start to kind of recalculate. How am I going to do this? And so I think probably the most, the bigger picture questions that I would look at are what are your personal goals for the business? And then where are you at in the phases of business? And I think one of the unfortunate myths that happens in the online marketing world and the online business world is that you can just start from zero and go, in six months, I'm going to be at six figures or whatever it is. And so people quit their jobs and they then feel disappointed that it's not happening as quickly as they thought it was going to be. And this is where I think the brick and mortar experience comes in really handy, is that if you were going to go, say, start a restaurant, you would expect to not be profitable for three years, and you would put hundreds of thousands, if not a million dollars upfront to get it open and to sustain yourself for that time period. And so this world that we're in is so easy compared to that, like, so easy, and yet people are disappointed because they're, they're not making six figures in the first six months of their business. And so if you can look at it from the long game perspective and say, you know, I'm gonna do these one on one sessions until I'm booking out x number of sessions a week, and then I'm gonna look at, now, how do I leverage this? How do I take this one on one work and create a group thing? Now I can do one session a week to ten people and make the same amount of money I was making in ten sessions a week. And then you start to, um, you start to go from there. I think there's another sort of myth in the online world is that you should start with low priced, uh, high volume from the get go. And I 100% disagree with that. Like, unless you have deep pocketbooks in a long Runway, you're going to be way better off if you start with some, like, premium offers, working with a few people, and then as you grow, you create those lower priced, easier to access options for people.
Lou: I love all that. Super valuable. What would be a way that you would help someone start or think about their premium offer?
Rachel: So this is kind of a fun experiment, because what I would encourage you to do is do a little daydreaming about what would be the most fun for you to deliver. Like, what would be really cool, really exciting, really fun for you to deliver in, like, the way that really lights you up and write it down, craft it out, detail it, and what would feel like a really, really good exchange, energy exchange for that and go big. Like, let it be big, let it create this offer, not with the intention that I have to make something that's going to be accessible or I'm going to sell a ton of, but this is what I'm going for. Create that and have that. And then maybe you create some alternate versions of it that you can test and try and work with people, but your goal is to sell one of those, one of that premium offer, right? And you don't stop doing the stuff you're currently doing, but you put that there because if that's what you really want to be doing, and that's what really lights you up, then that's the direction you should be moving in.
Lou: So question on that, because let's say the type of, and I'm guess I'm doing a mix of both now. Like, I wouldn't consider myself a business coach, but I do have some mentorship and experience that I can offer to people. And I do as part of some of my, if that type of client comes to me and I'm starting to attract more of that type of person. And I also am still studying in different coach modalities that's very more like an unfolding and less me creating it. Like we're showing up and there's something you're working on. It could be various things that are happening in your life where it has this different, similar therapeutic approach. I mean, it's not therapy, obviously, but it has that, like, we're going on a journey together over some time. And so I'm just wondering for someone, I guess, on either aspects of that, like, what would to me, I don't even know what, like I would do. It's like I can't. I don't know what the person's coming with. It's like, how do I create, like, how do I make it something super fun if it's really they're bringing, you know what it is more than I'm going to be there for them in between the sessions and I'm there, you know? Yeah, I guess. I guess I'd be curious to hear, like that type of. Because I think when it's more strategic, like, I find that to be an easier thing to make it. Like it's going to be like this and then we can do this and then we do that because I'm bringing it. But when I don't know what to bring when they're bringing it, how do I make something? Does that make sense, what I'm trying to say?
Rachel: Yes. And the answer is that you're thinking about it in terms of what you're delivering versus the experience they're having. And so when you start to shift into that world of premium, it becomes more about the experience that someone is having and less about the particular deliverables. And so if you know and you trust that whatever they come to you with, you can help them work through it, because you're coaching, you're mentoring, and it's really about wisdom, sharing. And it's a partnership, right, where they're bringing something and there's a back and forth, then it becomes about what's the environment that you're curating for them to allow for the best energetic flow, for the best experience to get them in the mood and in the mindset and in the energy of whatever the shift is, you're trying to make some sort of expansion, some sort of shift, right. And so it might be that you're taking them and going for a walk in the park and taking them to lunche instead of, you know, sitting on a Zoom call. It might be that you're, you know, curating if it's, if it has to be at a distance, it might be that you're curating an experience for them where you're shipping a package to their house the day so that it arrives the day before they meet and they have a candle and they have the stuff. Like what can you do to curate an environment? And I experience that would be really, that's going to get them out of their day to day so that they can do the real work with you. Right.
Lou: That's cool. That's a really cool idea. My wife would love that because she does, she like thinks like that in her, like how can I do these little gifting and adding value in that way?
Rachel: Yeah.
Lou: You know. Yeah. You mentioned like we talked about before, like that one on one, it's like this, this balance like I love. I wish I could just do coaching on like specific days but the way it works out with people, it's like that's still the,
Lou: it's hard to make it on like two days. Like I would love to just do two days where I'm doing coaching, three days where like everything's open but it's always working out where schedules. It's like I'm doing one here, one here, one here, one here. But you know, you mentioned before letting go of I do like having a one on one practice. I think it keeps me like its a nice different flex but im curious what it would look but scary because it is bringing a good amount of revenue right now of what it would look like to think of it without that, I dont know thats something to explore. So Im just reflecting on things that Im taking away. Rachel, is there anything before you share exciting things that youre up to and what you want to point people to but anything that we, you know, that is in the spirit of this conversation that you want to kind of share that you think might be supportive for people listening?
Rachel: Yeah, I think it's really beneficial to go back to where we started which is that focusing on one thing.
Lou: No, Rachel.
Rachel: Yes. Focusing on one thing and one shift. You know, so like for example, what you just shared, you know, if the one thing focus that you have right now is to get your calendar set so that you only see clients on two days a week and that doesn't have to happen tomorrow, but that you just start to shift in that direction and what the ripple effect of that would be, you know, then that becomes the focus. And then once you've done that, then you can go, oh, my gosh. Now I have three whole days a week where I can be creating content or I could be doing a group thing or whatever. And, um. And also, you know, you said that the one on one work is really important to you. Then you should absolutely do that. Like, I think one of the things we get caught up in is the way to grow is to do what everybody else is doing. And I really think the way to grow is to do what you love to do and the best way for you to do it. And so that applies to everybody, to figure out what it is that you love and really focus in on that thing.
Lou: Beautiful, Rachel. I'll mic drop it there. Anywhere you want to. What are you excited about? Like, what are you building? How can people get more partner more with you?
Rachel: Yeah, well, I have my podcast, pleasure and profits, which hopefully will get you on as a guest here soon. And I. Yeah, that is some guest interviews and sort of some of my pontifications of all of. All of these things. And I work one on one with. With coaches, business owners, entrepreneurs, and as private strategy sessions and in a mentoring advising capacity. So come find me on Instagram at Rachel Anzalone or on LinkedIn or my website, Rachel anzalone.com, and shoot me a message. Let me know that you heard me on Lou's podcast.
Lou: Yay. Thanks so much, Rachel. I really appreciate it. This was so much fun.
Rachel: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Lou: All right, bye, friends. See you soon.