The problem with being a curious, learning-obsessed, multi-passionate female entrepreneur is that you’ll eventually encounter a pivot. Pivoting is part of the natural evolution of years and years of entrepreneurship. It’s a scary rite of passage that’s enough to send day-one entrepreneurs into a frenzied tizzy. No one knows the process of pivoting better than Marie Wold. And she’s here to help you take on the big scary transition, all while easing your mind as far as profitability is concerned. Today, she’s sharing her take on building a profitable coaching business and setting social media boundaries so you can pivot in peace.

Building a Profitable Business and Setting Social Media Boundaries

Let me clue you into the many entrepreneurial lives of Marie Wold. Today, Marie is a business mentor to ambitious online coaches who want to make bank while making a difference. (Yes. This phrase is in fact trademarked). But her entrepreneurial journey started at 16 years old as she found herself accidentally stepping into her role as a fitness influencer.

“I started my Instagram account as a place to follow all my favorite fitness people and to hold myself accountable. It was a fun little hobby for me to do and back then it was so easy to grow. The standards were so low, you could post a picture of an apple with the Valencia filter and hashtag it ‘afternoon snack’ and people would love it. So I was literally consistently sharing my journey as a high schooler and hit my first 10,000 followers in six months. From there it just gradually started building momentum.”

That was how Marie ended up as a fitness influencer in a time where the term “influencer” hasn’t officially been coined. But Marie’s first entrepreneurial execution was monetizing her following by selling $10 healthy recipe e-books. The result? She generated over $1000 in 3 months – more than she earned as a nanny during summer breaks.

Long story short, her career only blossomed from that point out. She soon made a full-time living through brand collaborations as a fitness influencer during college. Which eventually led her to invest in her first business mentor – Jenna Kutcher.

Influencer Energy vs. Entrepreneurial Energy

Marie knew that she didn’t want to live off of brand collaborations forever. Being sure of this fact was what led her to her first big pivot. 

“I didn’t want to work with brands forever because I wanted to be able to control my own income. I wanted to have more of a say and have more control over the direction of my business, the projects I was doing, who I was working with, and the income I could make.”

Thus, Marie went from fitness influencer to becoming a fitness coach. This proved to be a sensible transition as Marie had been sharing immense value in the fitness space for years. Because of that, many people from her community jumped at the opportunity to be under her wing. However, this pivot did come with a lot of trial and error. But with the right guidance, tools, and strategies, Marie was able to scale her fitness coaching business to a quarter-million annually.

Eventually, Marie took her expertise and decided to make more of an impact. So she pivoted once more and now provides her guidance as a business mentor to coaches. It was a natural evolution, “I was just falling in love with business mentorship and I was so much more excited about it than I was about the fitness stuff.”

Having walked the line of both influencer and entrepreneur successfully, Marie has noticed a major difference in the energy that both roles assume. When it comes to transitioning from influencer to entrepreneur, Marie says “it’s more about building authority and getting out of the friendzone.”

Your goal as an influencer is to come off as a trusted friend. Whereas your goal as an entrepreneur is to lead with authority, so your audience can trust you as their guide.

But Before Authority… You Need a Personal Brand!

If you’ve been a long-time listener of Her Life By Design, you know the importance of establishing a strong personal brand. But Marie makes a compelling case on how her personal brand has allowed her to make 3 major pivots. 

“My personal brand is the sole reason why I’ve been able to have three drastically different businesses over the course of the last like eight years, and successfully transition from one to the next without having to start from scratch.”

While you might be quick to undervalue the importance of establishing a personal brand, but Marie strongly advises against it. 

And to help you with establishing your personal brand, Marie says “show up strongly enough to repel the wrong people.” Now I know you might be shaking in your boots, thinking that upping the ante on your personality on social media will invite negative comments. And to be honest, it might. But entrepreneurship is not the path for playing it safe.

“Really give yourself permission to be fully yourself and have your full personality come through. Bump your personality up 10% as if you’re bumping in the saturation on a photo, Because when you’re not with people in person, there isn’t as much depth. Whether you’re writing or showing up on video, there just needs to be that little extra saturation level for your personality for it to really come through like it would if someone met you in real life.”

Want to Build a Profitable Coaching Business? Focus on Your Benefits!

If you need hard evidence that Marie knows exactly what she’s talking about, each one of her pivots has been more profitable than the one before. In fact, her current business is on track to reach the 7-figure mark this year. When it comes to building a profitable coaching business, Marie has this to share:

“Focus more on the benefits than you do the features. This is going to make a massive difference in your conversions.”

Let’s begin by breaking that down…

• Features: This includes what your customer will get when they sign up for your program or online course. Meaning the content, videos, meetings, etc…
• Benefits: Why your customer should care about each of those features, and the value of the transformation that it will facilitate for them.

“An easy way to think of this is to make a ‘so that’ statement.” Marie advises.

For example, if you’re providing weekly coaching access, you would say “you’ll have access to weekly coaching access so that (fill in the blank here).” Whatever you insert into that blank has to pertain to the transformation that you seek to provide your customers. 

“You need to basically educate people and really bridge that gap between, ‘here’s what you get, and here’s why that’s so valuable, and how it’ll bring you to the result that you desire.’”

Setting Social Media Boundaries

As you can probably imagine, having been through several public pivots and growing a massive following very early on has brought about some negative experiences on social media for Marie. And as much as we love to hate it, social media is an essential part of business in this day and age.

“I really grew up on social media and from 16 years old on, I was getting feedback from strangers on the internet. So I think that I’ve become more desensitized to it than the average person. Not that that’s necessarily a good thing.”

That isn’t to say that Marie isn’t for setting healthy and strong social media boundaries that will protect your peace.

Marie has received her fair share of negative comments across platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. And something that has protected her energy was using the block button and having a zero-tolerance policy for useless negativity.

“I’m really big on restricting people and the block button. I have no issue with blocking someone. I think some people say ‘if you don’t want people’s opinions, don’t put it on the internet.’ But also, it’s my page. And this is literally my home base on the internet. I have every right to not allow toxic people into my space. So it’s one thing to have constructive criticism and people asking fair questions. It’s another thing for people to just bring negativity for the sake of bringing negativity.”

Also, Marie isn’t shy about hitting unfollow when she finds herself in the comparison mode. “Of course, I still want to work through it and go inwards as far as why this is so triggering for me, but the first step is mute them or unfollow them, and just protecting my peace.”

Curating a Safe Space for Your Community to Thrive

Navigating the world of online entrepreneurship can feel like a double-edged sword. On one end, showing up consistently online and delivering value is incredibly important to building a profitable business. On the other, you open yourself up to judgment from people who don’t even know your middle name. Having been in this space from such a young age, Marie has gained incredible wisdom and insight into building a profitable coaching business online all while curating a safe space.

If you’re ever too afraid to put yourself out there, or you’re nervous about what people might say if you pivoted your business, Marie has got your back. Through all the pivots, negativity, and other online business scaries, she has found tremendous authority, success, and alignment. As Marie says, your fears aren’t a reason for you to pull back. It’s a reason for you to push forward. So trust the process, but more importantly – trust yourself.

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RELEVANT LINKS:

Marie’s Website: https://mariewold.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marieewold/ 

Grind and Be Grateful Podcast: https://mariewold.com/grind-and-be-grateful/

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