A few years ago I had the joy of seeing someone I trained take the stage.
To be honest, I didn’t think there’d be a better feeling than standing in front of an audience, seeing their eyes light up, experiencing the adrenaline and high of speaking on a conference stage.
Until the moment I watched my first client take the stage. I imagine it’s like watching your kid perform the lead role in a school play (but more businessy).
Now my favorite moments in my week are reviewing our weekly wins report, where I scan through the notes, posts and wins of my clients.
So when one of my Speak Up to Level Up clients reached out and asked if she could share how she used what she learned inside my program to LAUNCH her business, I was thrilled.
Meet Sarah VanHoose, a Ramsey Preferred Finance Coach, mom and full time leader in a healthcare organization.
In this episode she’ll share with you how speaking helped her find her messaging, voice and confidence as a new coach in the online space.
Don’t worry, this isn’t a “Heather’s so awesome brag fest” 😉 she shares six specific transformations that you can apply into your business.
Tune into the episode with the player on the top of this page, or read the full episode transcript here.
Episode Show Notes
How Sarah came to this idea of helping people with their money and their personal lives into their business
It started with a crazy idea I had on a plane on a trip back from a tiny island in Mexico, Isla Mujeres. My husband and I talked about one day living on the island, and I thought “why should we WAIT?”
I threw the idea out at him and started mapping it all out on my cocktail napkin. Weeks later, I couldn’t kick the idea and started a blog where I chronicled my journey to influence (ie convince) my husband that moving to Isla Mujeres Mexico would be a great move for our family.
I figured out the finances of what that would look like for me quitting my job and him taking on some different kind of work and still managing our finances or our household. I started blogging about it.
My love and passion for that personal finance piece led my desire to help other people with that. I realized at that moment that my financial journey as a Dave Ramsey fan or follower was not something that people were acclimated to or really aware of. That’s when the light bulb sort of went off and that’s when those things started to come together. That’s when I knew I needed to start a business.
Shortly thereafter, I joined Heather’s Speak Up to Level Up program and here are the key lessons that transformed my budding business.
6 Transformations Speaking that Sarah’s brought into her brand new business
- SERVE
Showing up just to serve without having any expectation of what that looks like in return was a great gift. You don’t just go out and make that 100 friends or followers and they all of a sudden want to buy all of your services. You have to go and serve in a really valuable way.
- OUTLINE
When we talk about outlining, we’re just talking about framing out your thoughts in an order that’s going to make sense to your audience. It allows you to speak, to build confidence with your own voice and with your own ability, and to articulate what you want to say. It didn’t have to be long or fancy. You just needed bullet points.
- SALES
It’s the art of having a conversation and being able to share your services and what you offer in a meaningful way that helps connect the buyer and the seller. And not a lot of people really think about the sale as an opportunity to speak with influence. They think it’s their job to convince or sell. No – our job is to have a conversation and to show up with the right energy to lead someone to a decision.
Know that truly effective speaker, the ones that we remember for the right reasons, they’re the ones that honor the conversation with their audience even when the audience is unable to speak.
- PITCHING
Being in the online space and wanting to truly be able to influence people, we have to get the word out. Podcasts are such a great and really kind of fun way in order to share our message.
You need to grow your audience in a variety of different ways so learning how to pitch was really important but you should be able to choose who you wanted to work with. You just do not want to pitch yourself to everybody out there. You need to make sure that their platform is aligned with your audience and theirs as well.
- SHOW UP
Show up whether you wanted to or not, whether anybody was watching or not, and continue to practice and build that experience and that muscle. Be totally authentic and real. Give people the opportunity to know who you truly are so they can connect. Your consistency in showing up will really serve you well.
- FRAMEWORKS
Outlining your signature talk into a framework helps you not only get organized but also communicate your message to your audience. It builds trust with your audience which shows that there’s actually a path. It’s not just going to be this fluid conversation and that it’s well thought out.
Simplify your framework so that your audience can follow with it and it’s something that you can keep going back to over and over again. People respect and appreciate simplicity.
Ups and Downs of Visibility
There comes this moment where you feel like you’re doing the work but it seems like you’re not making any progress and not getting anywhere.
“When I started my business, I heard a lot of crickets but it gave me a lot of good opportunities to be like okay, well this is just my time to serve. I’m just going to go practice. I’m going to go out there, and give, and share to others and know that I’m here for the long game, not the short game.”
Sarah’s advice to new business owners or those who are new to the concept of visibility
For new businesses, keep on keeping on. Your why had to be big enough both personally and professionally for you to keep pursuing. And when you start doing and practicing the work your confidence builds, the results are seen, the testimonials are rolling in. There’s validation for all those pieces.
About my guest, Sarah VanHoose
Sarah VanHoose is a personal finance coach. She’s focused on helping families stress less about their money by making a plan and walking through it with encouraging accountability through her online coaching business, Journey to Influence.
As a trained Ramsey Preferred Finance Coach, she makes money stuff simple and easy to understand – going back to the basics. Sarah’s background is as a leader in a large healthcare organization. She and her husband James and two daughters live in Portland, OR.
| Connect with Sarah on Instagram | her Website
Grab Sarah’s freebie: 5 Step Plan to Thrive with your Finances
