Ep #9: 3 Decisions That Generated $30 Million in My Coaching Business

Curious to know what a great money decision looks like and what does it take to make a great money decision? I know I always love hearing successful women share behind the scenes, what works and what doesn't work, and really get into what success and failure look like from the inside out. I don't want the glossy version. I want the real version.

Stay tuned to hear three of my best money decisions I've made in my coaching business, what my thinking was when I made these decisions, which, trust me, is probably not what you might think, and how each of these decisions has contributed to the nearly $30 million in revenue that I've made. I'm Kendall, and it's all here for you in this episode of The Money Coach School Podcast. Let's dive in.

Welcome to The Money Coach School Podcast. To really excel at coaching women, you have to be skilled, confident, and even fearless at money coaching. If you're passionate about women holding genuine money power and love supporting women entrepreneurs, then this is the show for you. Now, here's your host, money feminist Kendall SummerHawk.

Hello, beautiful coaches. I am so happy you are here with me today. I'm excited to record this episode for you as a bookend to last week's episode number eight on lessons from my money mistakes. I know I always love hearing successful women share behind the scenes, what works, what doesn't work, and to really get into what success and failure look like from the inside out. I don't want the glossy version. I want the real version. Since we're about all things money here inside The Money Coach School, I'm here to make it real for you.

This feels so important to me on so many levels. First and foremost, my highest values in life and business are honesty and integrity. I will always tell you the truth. That creates trust and safety, which again, when we're talking about money is paramount. You are safe with me. You are safe to share, your money questions, your situations, your innermost thoughts, and feelings with me because I'm not going to judge you. I'm not going to criticize or shame or make you feel broken in any way.

I'm here to lead you to being self-led with money. Because no matter what your history has been, no matter what money decisions you've made that turned out well or turned out terrible, it doesn't matter. Every day you get the chance and the choice to create a fresh start with money. That's one of the very most coolest things about money. You can always have a fresh start.

All right, so before we dive in, I would love to connect with you on Instagram. You can screenshot the podcast while you're listening here and tag me with it on Instagram @KendallSummerHawk and make sure to follow me on Instagram as well.

All right, let's dive in. I'll drop a link to last week's episode in the show notes because in it, I share three giant, big, expensive whoppers of money mistakes I made. I shared what my thinking was when I made those mistakes, and the lessons I learned from them so that hopefully you can avoid making similar mistakes. I also give you insights on how to stay out of feeling regret, which is such an unhelpful emotion.

In today's episode, I want to share the flip side by highlighting three money decisions I made that turned out brilliantly. What's fascinating is that it was actually harder to prepare for this episode than it was for the mistakes episode. Interesting, right? I've certainly made hundreds of great money decisions along my journey of 22 plus years in business as a coach and running coach certification trainings, and for making close to $30 million in my coaching career.

But I think choosing three great money decisions was more difficult than choosing the examples of the money mistakes because the great money decisions were the ones that sent me in a new direction, on a path of success and opportunity that I just could not have seen at the moment of making the decision.

So these were not the money decisions where I invested in something, experienced a rapid payoff, and said hey, that was great. These were the money decisions where I really had to dig deep, trust my intuition. I had to be bold, and I had to believe that the choice I was making was essential to creating the future I wanted for myself. I had to trust, which isn't always easy for me. But these decisions did pay off to the tune of millions, which is what makes them my three best money decisions.

So let's take a look at each of these. Best money decision number one, choosing to coach women entrepreneurs. I chose this decision as number one because it's the reason, the catalyst, behind all of the millions of dollars I've made as a coach. I really, truly cannot imagine what my business and my life would look like if I hadn't made this decision.

Now at the time I made the switch to coaching women entrepreneurs, it wasn't because I knew it would be lucrative or anything practical or strategic like that. That was the furthest thing from my mind. I was actually failing rapidly in my coaching business and literally on the brink of needing to go back and get a job. I was out of money, I had no clients, and was really in a place of despair.

But the thought of getting a job was so horrible that I decided no, I am not giving up. I wanted to coach women entrepreneurs not because of what I knew at the time about business coaching, which was almost nothing, but because of who they are. Women entrepreneurs are ambitious. They want to make that difference in the world. They work through fears. They want to make money, which I love that about them. They're into self-growth, which I am passionate about.

Of course, it turned out to be an incredibly great money decision because I was able to quickly start making money. I could charge amounts for coaching that I couldn't have dreamed of before. I did not need to get niched very quickly, which was a blessing. The number of women entrepreneurs wanting coaching has proven to be rich with opportunity and growing more year after year.

Basically, as a business coach for women entrepreneurs, we coach on fundamental strategies that never go out of style, that always result in a client making more money in her business, and that are based on all the things that I absolutely love and adore to coach on. Money, pricing, beliefs, self-concept, values. It’s the perfect combination of practical plus self-growth, which doesn't get more perfect for me as a coach, right? It's like the all of everything.

So when I look at my life, my house, my horses, money in the bank, retirement fully funded, all of it comes from coaching women entrepreneurs, and now certifying women to become business coaches in my Money Breakthrough Business Coach certification training. I'll drop a link to that certification training in the show notes.

Because if you're like me, and you love supporting soul-driven, heart-centered women. If you love self-growth, and you love the idea of helping women design their ideal business or reinvent the business they currently have, The Money Breakthrough Business Coach certification training, it may be perfect for you. Because it gives you both coach training in my signature coaching method and gives you a complete done for you coaching system you can brand as your own and take clients through and trust that you're going to be delivering results in every coaching session. So I'll drop that link in the show notes.

All right, best money decision number two, investing $100,000 in a high end mastermind back in 2008. Now, I will tell you straight up making that decision was one of the easiest, most in my gut, I knew it was the right thing to do, and one of the craziest, this isn't the right time decision all at once. It was the craziest because we were finishing building our house, and every dollar I made was actually a dollar and a half going into the house.

If you've ever built a house then you know it's always so much more expensive than you first planned for. So we were in the final month of building. I was working my tail off running multiple coaching groups, creating courses, doing everything I could keep cash flowing into that construction project. We were on a deadline with the bank to complete construction. So there was no delaying. I did not have that as an option. It had to be finished.

However, the bank had short-loaned us. So we had to make up that difference in cash, the difference between the amount of cost to build and the amount that the bank had loaned us. So I was hustling.

Then I attended my first big live workshop. I just somehow knew walking in that first day that I was going to sign up for something. I just had no idea it would be $100,000 mastermind. The moment I heard the offer, I knew I wanted it. I had chill bumps all over me. I was literally vibrating with excitement.

I remember that night in my hotel room filling out the application. My hand was shaking so much I couldn't even read what I had written. I called my husband that night from that hotel room. I told him what I wanted to do. I asked him what do you think? Because I'm thinking am I just crazy to be doing this? He asked me this incredible question because he's an incredible coach. He said do you think you will make ten times the return on your investment? I knew the answer was yes. I love that question because it instantly galvanized me into committing to making this an investment, not an expense.

Now, please understand 2008 was also the first year I made $1 million. But, like I said, every penny was going into the house. So it wasn't like I had an extra 100K laying around in my underwear drawer. I remember sitting on the hotel bed, having no idea where I was going to get the money. Then I have this thought, the thought was it's not up to me. This is up to God. I'll never forget the feeling of truly surrendering to making the decision from a place of knowing it was the right thing to do and letting go of the how.

Now I'm a diehard control freak. So that was a memorable feeling. Then truly a miracle happened. Literally within five minutes of letting go from such a deep place of surrender, I knew exactly where I could get access to the money. I could write a check for it, and I could pay for that mastermind in full. So that's what I did.

Now, why am I including this as my second best money decision? Five reasons. Number one, the way I made that decision was complete trust in my intuition and inner knowing without knowing the how or what was to come. That was a priceless experience. Number two, my husband gave me that wonderful frame of creating a standard that I would receive 10x on my investment, ten times. Creating that standard, it flipped a switch inside of me to look for ways to create that ten times return, which absolutely happened.

Number three, even though I realized how I could access $100,000, it was borrowed money. So I made a commitment to pay it back A-S-A-P, and that kicked my butt to launch a course I had already made that was just sitting gathering dust. I had sold like ten copies of it in six months.

But as soon as I got home from signing up for that mastermind, I planned out a very simple launch. Remember, this is 2008. Facebook wasn't around then. I sold $126,000 of that course in three days and fully paid back that $100,000 investment. I would never have done that or even thought I could do that if I had not made that investment.

Reason number four was it was in that mastermind that I gained the courage to launch my first certification training, which I had wanted to do for two years prior to that but kept holding back from. That certification was successful from the very start. People have loved it year after year. It's launched the coaching careers of dozens and dozens of very successful coaches. It has changed lives all over the planet, and it's now what we know as The Money Breakthrough Business Coach certification training.

Reason number five was that mastermind put me in proximity with women entrepreneurs who were either at or above my level. So I could see that fundamentally, we're all the same. I learned that higher level women are just as easy, if not easier, to coach than others. That I did not need to feel intimidated by their success. They still struggled with many of the same issues, which I found a relief to experience.

All right, best money decision number three, choosing to go all in on high ticket coaching. This topic deserves its own podcast episode or two or three. So I will definitely bring that to you in the future. For today, I'll just say that this was such a pivotal money decision because it immediately 10x my income. But more than that, high ticket is the catalyst for looking at my life from an up-leveled, higher self-worth and greater self-respect standard.

High ticket was the catalyst for me to take my coaching to a new level of skill and unshakable confidence that I am so grateful to know how for the rest of my life. It's like I have this skill. I have this confidence. Nobody can ever, ever take it from me. High ticket is a state of mind more than a dollar amount.

For me, what it did was support me and getting focused on creating results for my clients, and choosing to only coach people who are coachable. So I cleared out difficult clients. It supported me in getting incredibly comfortable with higher numbers in my pricing and normalizing that not only could I make a lot of money, I can hold that as an energetic money standard for my clients as well.

The decision to switch from low ticket coaching group pricing, which is what I had before, to high ticket groups was how I then made over six figures in income literally overnight, like about six weeks after making that decision. Kept doing that over and over again with each round of enrolling into my high-ticket coaching groups, my ultra-high ticket groups, and in private coaching.

So at this point I have over 15 years of experience offering and running high ticket coaching programs. So I will definitely be sure to create future podcast episodes on the mindset and the coaching skills you need for this to work just as well for you. It is surprisingly easy, and it is so worth falling in love with for so many wonderful reasons.

Which brings me to our wrap up. I want to leave you with these three takeaways. Takeaway number one, making money decisions that turn out well happens when first you're clear about what you want. Second, you trust your instincts, you trust your intuition. Every one of the three best money decisions I shared with you here today happened because I had a simple, clear idea of what I wanted. My idea wasn't detailed. I didn't know anything of the how. It was as simple as saying I'm going to start coaching women entrepreneurs, and I did it.

As simple as saying I want to be in a mastermind with that particular mentor at that time. I did it. As simple as saying, I want to launch my certification training, and getting the coaching I needed in that mastermind to help me make it happen. As simple as saying, I want to switch my coaching into high ticket, and I did it.

Takeaway number two, making money decisions that turn out well is not about great timing. Guess what? There is no such thing as great timing. That is a myth. Great timing is only seen as great timing in hindsight, and only because something has worked out for you in a way that you're happy about. You have to make the decision from a clear, centered place.

Then that initial decision will cause a waterfall of other decisions to line up for you. You're making a great money decision not from a place of fear of missing out or need, but from a place of calling, of desire, of inner urging that your intuition is giving you to put you on a new path.

Takeaway number three is it's never about being ready. You only get ready after the decision, not before. Because what makes you ready is making the decision. I hope hearing about my best money decisions has been inspiring for you. I hope it helps give you courage, and most of all, self-trust. Your future self, she knows what's right for you. So listen to her. She speaks to you in inner urges. She speaks to you and whispers of intuition.

If you're anything like me, then your best money decisions are going to look like the craziest ones at the moment of making them. They're going to look like you're stepping off a cliff with no road yet underneath your feet. But trust me, the road will be there for you because this is your path. If you're inspired to coach women entrepreneurs, definitely check out my Money Breakthrough Business Coach certification training with the link in the show notes, or you can go to certifiedcoach.training.

Remember, everything I offer here in the podcast and in all of my certifications trainings is designed to support you in creating genuine money power your way. All right, thank you for listening, and I am excited to connect with you again next week in our next episode.

Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode of The Money Coach School Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you follow so you never miss an episode. Also, I would so love and appreciate if you would leave a 5-star review. Your review supports women just like you in discovering all of the juicy tips and insights I’m sharing here on how to coach women on money.

And if you want to learn how to excel at coaching women on money, definitely go to KendallSummerHawk.com and check out the wealth of money coach trainings that we have for you. Thanks so much for being part of this money coaching movement and for tuning into the show every week.