Unlock Your Potential: Top 3 Things Every Life Coach Should Automate

Are you tired of the constant back-and-forth of scheduling, the headache of time zone conversions, and the overwhelming pressure to juggle multiple appointments? Unlock the secrets of effortless productivity in this transformative episode with Annie Veblen-McCarty! As an entrepreneur with over two decades of experience and a certified master coach, Annie breaks away from traditional productivity advice to introduce you to the four pillars of efficiency: automate, delegate, eliminate, and own. She will reveal the top three automation tasks every coach should implement to reclaim valuable time and energy.

Discover why automating your calendar is the ultimate game-changer for coaches. Annie takes you through the immense benefits of using tools like Google Calendar and Apple Calendar to eliminate the chaos of scheduling. Imagine a world where clients book their own slots, perfectly tailored to their time zones, freeing you to focus entirely on delivering exceptional service. This episode is brimming with actionable insights that will help you streamline your workflow and transform your coaching business. Join Annie and learn how to become effortlessly productive, starting today!

Check out Annie's automation software, CoachOS here: https://os.avmcoaching.com/ and receive a 7-day free trial!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, this is Annie Veblen-McCarty and I'm gonna teach you how to be effortlessly productive. I've been an entrepreneur for over 20 years and I got sick and tired of experts preaching what business and life should look like and what I should be doing as a leader and to turn a profit, only to find myself wasting time, burned out, feeling inauthentic and still not making any money. On this show, we are ditching the shoulds. I'm giving you permission to do business differently. As a certified master coach, I believe that everything you need to have success and build the life and business of your dreams is already living on the inside. I'm going to empower you to lean into what you do best, help you see your path forward clearly and give you the strategy and action steps along the way to become effortlessly productive. Let's dive in.

Speaker 1: 0:58

I am so glad that you are here for today's episode, when we think about being effortlessly productive. We have our four pillars right we automate, we delegate, we eliminate and we own. And today I am going to teach you the top three things that every life coach or business coach or executive coach should automate in their business in order to save themselves a ton of time and energy and effort so that they can better serve their clients. So let's dive in. So when we talk about automation, automation is something where you are having a computer or some piece of software or something that does not involve human touch, where activities and tasks in your business are being done in the background. So what are my top three suggestions on what to automate, especially if you are a coach? The first one that I say that you should automate is your calendar. Yes, your calendar.

Speaker 1: 2:14

As a coach, we often are booking appointments for various reasons. Maybe you're doing free calls to help people out for discovery, calls for consultations, maybe you are doing workshops for people. You are probably working with clients, maybe one-on-one, maybe in a group setting, and any time that we are going back and forth with people on when it would fit for their schedule and our schedule, things can get very complicated. I know, for me, one of the biggest things when I was doing this process manually and did not have it automated was just trying to figure out time zones, because there are so many time zones. Just in the US, where I am, there are so many different time zones. There are some places of the country that do not go into daylight savings time and others that do. And then when we're working with clients internationally as well, and maybe you are in Canada or the United Kingdom or Australia or Germany or who knows anywhere in the world, when we start talking about time zones, things can get very complicated. I work with somebody in Australia and just the time zone calculation and they go onto their daylight savings and off of it at different times than we do, so throughout the year. Sometimes we are many hours apart, even more than others.

Speaker 1: 3:40

So automating a calendar means that. Number one, you don't have to figure out things like that about what time is it for you versus what time is it for me. We also don't have to go back and forth on. I have this slot open. Well, what about this one? Will my kids get off the bus at this time? Well, I think I can squeeze it into this. No, when things are automated with our calendar, somebody can go online. You can send them a link or they can click a link in an email or on your website. They can look at what your availability is in their time zone and they can select a slot that works for them and get booked.

Speaker 1: 4:22

In addition, most calendar automations state up with whatever calendar you are using For me. I use Google Calendar and also iCalendar, ical, apple Calendar, so it automatically syncs into that. So I will just have appointments pop into my calendar. I don't have to worry about it, go back and forth with people manually, enter it in. It just shows up and I know that I am going to be getting on to Zoom or on to a phone call with my client at that time or my potential client. So it saves so much time and that is why that is the number one thing for coaches that I suggest that you automate. That is the number one thing for coaches that I suggest that you automate. The second thing that I suggest that you automate is appointment reminders, because once the appointment is booked, we want to make sure that that person has it in their calendar as well and then also shows up at that time In addition, in a way, appointment reminders.

Speaker 1: 5:28

Another aspect of this automation is also allowing people to be able to reschedule or cancel that appointment on their own, because we all know life comes up, things happen, kids get sick, you get sick, whatever has happened, family emergency there's so many reasons that we might need to reschedule an appointment or just cancel an appointment. And if they can do that on their own rather than having to come to you and go back and forth again on that scheduling, that is beautiful and saves you so much time. In addition, having reminders and when I say reminders I mean both text and email is what I personally use in my business. So people will get an email and a text message when they book an appointment so that they have my number saved in their phone, so they have the link that our meeting is going to be at or know what my phone number is that I will be calling from. They have all of that information laid out and it's easy for them to also have that reschedule and cancel link if they need to make changes, as well as just all the information about their appointment so that they can make sure that time is reserved in their calendar.

Speaker 1: 6:55

Number two I will send reminders leading up to the appointment, so often 24 hours before and even one hour before, and then 10 or 15 minutes before, I will send a text message. And the reason these automations are so important is number one. We all have really busy lives. I know that I have forgotten that I had something booked, even if I had checked my calendar that morning or I've just gotten so into work I lost track of time. So having that reminder has been helpful for me at various times and I know in terms of both prospective clients of mine as well as my existing paying clients who are on contract with me.

Speaker 1: 7:35

Things happen right, things come up. Life is busy. My show up rate for people coming to the appointments that they booked skyrocketed when I started reminding people of when their appointment was and giving them multiple reminders right the day before, an hour before, as we need to be hopping onto that call. It also gives people an opportunity to say, oh my gosh, you know what this emergency did come up, so I'm not sitting there on Zoom wondering what's going on where they are. If they're okay, it's easier for them to get in touch with me because they remember oh my gosh, yes, I had this emergency, but I need to let Annie know that something happened and I can't be there. It allows me to be better with my time as well, because if somebody cancels or needs to reschedule even last minute, I can take that time and use it for other work or other productive things, or just take that time for myself, which is always a good thing.

Speaker 1: 8:41

So those reminders are huge, and the reason I say to automate these is because that is going to save you so much time, because we all have a lot going on I don't like the word busy, but because we have a lot going on me remembering to actually send those reminders. They would probably not happen, especially the weeks, like this week, where my calendar is very full. I have lots of appointments booked with people. I am probably not going to remember to send them both email and text reminders leading up, and that is why that is my number two thing to automate. My number three thing to automate in your life coaching or business coaching.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Business is delivering a free offer, a free thing that can help people, and the reason that I think that this is an amazing thing to automate having something free is going to help them on the next step of their journey and also show them all the things that they have to learn. That is an amazing way to meet new people, to connect with people who need your services and what you do, and when we can have this automated, that means that they can go on, they can request this, they can get to know us, this thing that we are delivering to them, whether it is a workshop that we've done, or maybe a PDF or an ebook or an audio book or a recording of something, a training that you share, whatever that looks like for you, they can come on to your website or you can send them a link. They can download it and request it whenever is good for them. Now they have given you their name and their email address, and sometimes their phone number, in exchange for this. So you are building your email list and possibly your text message list, which is huge, right, because we own that content, we own that information and obviously it's our responsibility to protect that information. But we own that content, we own that information and obviously it's our responsibility to protect that information. But we own that information. It is off of social media, it is ours, and we can then do things that are also automated. So we're going to deliver what it is, that that training or that guide or that ebook, whatever it is we're going to deliver it, probably via email.

Speaker 1: 11:06

There is so much we can do with this email automation. That happens after the fact, after they have requested that download and gotten that delivered. And again, this is all automated. You are not touching a single thing, but in the emails that we can send to them automated, they can get to know us. They can get to know what it is that we offer.

Speaker 1: 11:31

If you have something like an Instagram account that you really are active on and share a lot on and do a lot of marketing on a YouTube channel whatever means it is that you want them a podcast like this, that you want them connecting with you, it's a good way to stay in touch and get to know you better. You can chat about that in your emails. You can talk about programs and opportunities to work with you if that is something that is appropriate in there. We can also do things like have them book free calls right. And now we are circling back to why it's important to have an automated calendar. We can share a calendar link so they can hop on with us. We can help them with something that they need help with and share a little bit about how they can continue to work with us, to continue to get that help from us.

Speaker 1: 12:25

There are so many things. The ideas are limitless on what you can share in this automated email series that they will be receiving. Again, the fact that you do not have to collect their name and email from them. That is all automated. The fact you do not have to actually send them the training or the guide or the ebook or whatever free thing you are offering them that is all automated. And then this sequence of emails or text messages that they are getting, that are helping them get to know you better and how you can further serve them re-resources, paid resources, all the things that you have to offer them all of that is happening in the background. Think about how many hours that is saving you. It is absolutely huge, and that is why those are my top three things for any life coach or business coach that I suggest automating.

Speaker 1: 13:30

So little bonus tip I'm going to throw in here for you as well I highly recommend, in terms of automating all of this, that you find some kind of automation software or app that all works together, because it's going to make your job so much easier if your calendar and these appointment reminders and this place where they can go download your free offer and then receive these, this email series. If all of this is integrated together, it makes it so much easier. Right, everything is in one place, and that is part of why I designed my software called Coach OS, why I helped design this the way that I did, because it is specifically for life and business and executive coaches, to help them have this software package. That is all the things that they might need to automate in their business, whether you're ready to use one aspect of it or all aspects of it, but having it all in one place where it's integrated together and so easy to use with each other, all these different little pieces of the puzzle, whatever software or automations system that you decide to go with, I highly suggest again, my little bonus tip is to make sure that it is all integrated together in one place to make it so much easier to use. If you are interested in learning more about my CoachOS software, I am going to put the link to so you can get more information in the show notes down in, or, if you're on YouTube, if you're watching this on YouTube, down in the description of this video and that way you can go on and check it out.

Speaker 1: 15:18

There is a seven day free trial as well, so I cannot wait to hear what you do with these three things to automate. Drop down in the comments what one you are going to start with first, and once you get it automated, I can't wait for you to share with all of us Again in the comments. Share with all of us how that has helped your business, how much time and energy that has saved you, and also what other things in your business you can now spend your time and energy doing, because this is a give and take right. We are not just saving this time on the one side. We now have all this extra time to go do other things with, so it's like double duty this is getting done and we get to do something else with that time and energy. So I hope you have a beautiful day. I can't wait to catch you on the next episode. I will see you soon.