Courses Vs. One-on-One Coaching: Which is Right for You?

I’m gonna start with a story.

I spent the first 15 years in business searching out ALL the trainings, workshops, podcasts, etc… looking for who was going to be able to help me. That “missing piece.” A lot of valuable information came from it!

When I wasn’t fully committed and had side pockets of my day that I could commit to a course, that was what made sense.

The difference, and when I made the switch to one-on-one coaching was when I decided I wanted to go ALL in. I went from dabbling and doing courses here and there in the evenings to hiring a business coach and working with him to understand my mission and what I was meant to be doing.

This continued with a string of different coaches! I moved on to a branding coach to understand who I was, why I was different, what my messaging was about, and how I could stand out from everyone else.

Then I did a mastermind where I worked with someone who was an expert on Facebook ads and the mindset end of things… which I didn’t know I actually needed at the time!

One of the benefits of having a coach is that they can look at YOUR circumstances and tell you exactly what you need.

Courses are for when you don’t have a ton of time to invest, but you want to continue your learning. Maybe you’re not able to go 100% into your business, or your mindset just isn’t there yet. A coach is for when you’re thinking, “I’m getting there fast, and nothing is standing in my way.”

Let’s distill that down…

I think courses and workshops are great if you’re trying to piece together information in your strategy.

A coach (and masterminds) come into play when you need help getting those strategy pieces together and executing.

Personally, I probably wasted a lot of time on courses because I didn’t fully believe in my journey yet. I thought I could just do little courses here and there, but honestly, I didn’t know masterminds and coaching of THIS sort existed!

We see influencers on social media, but we don’t always realize there are people who will personally coach you on what you have to do. I didn’t stumble upon this until I came across a podcast while I was trying to learn about Facebook ads. I heard about a mastermind that was available to me. I hadn’t known that working one on one with someone was an option! ( I might’ve done it sooner if I’d known about it!)

The differences between a business coach and a mastermind:

A business coach is working one on one with someone, and in my experience, their skillsets are in a particular area. For me, they worked on whatever I wanted to work on and at the time, that worked for me. I didn’t really know what my vision was and what I needed to do… all I knew was I needed to quit my 9-5.

When I joined a mastermind, it was definitely online marketing focused. Everybody in the mastermind had an online business, and they were trying to increase revenue. I found THE mastermind environment for me because when you can learn from other people on your exact same journey, and you have a coach that knows your end destination, they can lay out the roadmap and framework.

It worked really well. Within 3 months, I had 3x’d my business. Within 12 months, I’d 10x’d the business. It was life-changing. I went from $10,000 inconsistently a month to $100,000/month. That was not small potatoes! It was “Holy shit, we can actually do this!”

Now, is every mastermind gonna get you from 0-100? Well, you need to think about where you’re at in your business. When I stepped into this mastermind, I already had a proven concept of my DFY posts that I knew people really liked. It was something they wanted. I had a product. and I knew who my potential customers were. I was in the stage of being able to scale that business up by really focusing on the marketing and ads. (I just had no sweet clue how to do it! I had to dive in. I’m not techy, so I had to learn myself.)

There are going to be people that want to join a mastermind, but they don’t quite have those ideas formulated.

Here’s how to know if you’re ready for a mastermind:

You wanna go all-in. You’re 100% ready to flip the switch.

You have a growth mindset. You’re aware that what you know now has only gotten you where you are now, and you need to uplevel.

You need to get some different influences in your life. Your mindset is SO much of it! Before the mastermind, although I was 100% in, I thought it would take make me a long time to get there. But one thing I learned from my mentor was, “F thinking like that! Why do we tell ourselves it’s going to take forever and be hard work? What if it was easy? What if you could flip the switch, and it could happen really quickly?”

It flipped my world. It was transformational. I think because we’re so close to ourselves, we don’t see our mindsets as an issue. I promise you that your current mindset is getting you where you’re at, and I promise you that you’ll have to change your mindset.

The other piece of it is having someone that’s been on the journey when you’re first starting out. It’s so important. Coaches I hired in the past hadn’t necessarily done what I wanted to do, and built an online business. When I finally met someone who HAD done it, it was like golden nuggets. It made a REALLY big difference.

Hopefully, this helps you understand when you should be seeking out a course vs. a mastermind!

I truly believe that the gift I was given came from all the learnings I had, not only from courses I’d taken but mostly from the many masterminds I’ve been part of. I feel very compelled to share the gifts I gained with others and hold their hands just like someone did for me!

That’s why I’ve decided to open up 2 masterminds:

One that focuses on business owners who are close to six figures and want to solidify it…

And another for those who are working on five figures. You’re trying to piece everything together.

If you were in our workshop a couple of weeks ago called “Network Marketing Won’t Make You Rich, DO This As Well,” you would’ve learned why you need a signature offer!

This is what these masterminds are about! The five-figure mastermind is for people who are slightly new or don’t have a lot of revenue coming in yet. The six-figure mastermind is for those who have an income stream and want to expand on it.

If you haven’t checked out that training yet, well, guess what: you can watch it for FREE right now! Just click here: https://ashleyshaw.ca/7figureworkshop/

Key Takeaways From This Episode:

One of the benefits of having a coach is that they can look at YOUR circumstances and tell you exactly what you need.
Your mindset will ultimately determine how quickly your business grows.
Courses are for those who can’t go all-in yet. Masterminds are for those who are all-in.