Is Your Money Mindset Holding You Back From Business SUCCESS?

Is your money mindset the real reason your business isn’t growing?

In this powerful live coaching session on today's episode of The Remote CEO Life Podcast, I’m speaking to therapist-turned-coach Meghan Fitzpatrick about the internal and practical blocks that are keeping her from creating business success.

From navigating pricing strategies to setting stronger boundaries, we unpack what’s really getting in the way - and spoiler alert - it starts with your mindset.

Inside this episode, we cover:

• Why money mindset can silently sabotage your business growth
• The pricing trap therapists and coaches fall into - and how to get out of it
• How to shift your positioning to attract serious, aligned clients
• When trading time for money no longer works (and what to do instead)
• Systems that help eliminate energy leaks and client management stress
• Using boundaries to protect your time, energy and income

If you’ve been struggling with low pricing, poor client boundaries or feeling stuck in a cycle of burnout in your business - this is the episode that will help you reconnect to your purpose and step into your next level of business success.

Listen now and start shifting your money mindset & unblocking your business growth today.

Connect with Meghan Fitzpatrick:

Instagram

Podcast

Website

#MoneyMindset #BusinessGrowth #CoachingBusiness #PricingStrategies #EnergyManagement #BoundariesInBusiness #ClientManagement #TherapeuticCoach

Chapters

• 0:00 When Your Business “Works” but Isn’t Working for You
• 1:18 Meet Meghan Fitzpatrick: Therapist, Coach & Podcaster
• 2:11 Why Career Coaching Became a Natural Focus
• 3:44 Feeling Overwhelmed: Too Many Ideas, Not Enough Energy
• 6:22 Energy Leaks, Systems & the Cycle of Cancellations
• 7:46 The Unsustainable Model of 1:1 Therapy
• 9:38 Pricing Challenges and Client Cancellations
• 10:47 Therapist vs. Coach: Which Path Leads to Growth?
• 13:49 Positioning Yourself for Higher Value Clients
• 16:55 Coaching as the More Scalable Model
• 19:17 The Money Block Around Raising Rates
• 22:13 Setting Boundaries and Respecting Your Time
• 24:22 Learning to Advocate for Yourself in Business
• 26:42 Why Systems Like Dubsado Can Streamline Everything
• 30:49 Therapeutic Coach: A New Identity
• 33:56 Action Steps: Positioning, Systems & Pricing
• 36:17 Using the Podcast as a Marketing Tool, Not Income Source
• 37:43 Sophie’s Reflections: Money Mindset & Business Growth

Transcript

Sophie Biggerstaff (00:00)
What do you do when your business is technically working, but it's still not bringing in the money, clarity or freedom that you want in today's life coaching session on the right. See our life podcast. I am talking to Megan Fitzpatrick. She's a therapist and coach who's built a heart led business, launched a podcast. She loves, and is full of amazing ideas like retreats and courses, but like so many of us have employed people, she is turning a point wondering, she's at a turning point wondering what should she focus on now to actually grow this into a sustainable business?

Today we talk about pricing, clarity, mentalization strategies, and how to build momentum when you've got too many ideas and not enough time.

Sophie Biggerstaff (00:34)
Hey, Megha and welcome to the Right Sierra Life podcast. This very special episode where we're going to deep dive into your business and a challenge that you are currently facing together and try and figure it out for you. Do you want to give us a little bit of an intro into you, where you're from and what is your business that we're going to be talking about today?

Meghan Fitzpatrick (00:49)
Yeah, hi, Sophie. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. I am a therapist and coach and also a podcast host myself. And I was really excited to connect with you because as much as I give all this time and attention to all of my clients, I feel like I need to give some to myself as well.

as a therapist, coach and podcast host, I feel that my energy is going in lots of different directions and I need to narrow my focus a bit. So yeah.

Sophie Biggerstaff (01:22)
that makes

sense and is there anything specific that you are coaching on in your coaching business?

Meghan Fitzpatrick (01:27)
In my coaching business, I tend to focus on career, but that's not a hundred percent. My podcast is also career focused. That is just something I've noticed. It's one of the major pain points that people bring to therapy. ⁓ I started my therapy career in London. So it's a very career oriented demographic of clients that I have and

Sophie Biggerstaff (01:43)
Mmm.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (01:53)
there's a lot of people that hate their jobs. I felt, yeah, as was I, you know, for a long time. So I feel that that's an area that I can really help people make some, you know, really clear action steps and some shifts. And I've seen people just make the biggest changes and it's very rewarding. So I love helping people with that. And then I started my podcast about that like six months ago where I just

Sophie Biggerstaff (01:55)
I know, I was one of them.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (02:20)
have had people on that work in all careers. Like it's not for any set demographic. The only common tie for guests on my podcast is people who have stepped through fear and are now doing more aligned work, whatever that looks like. And so I've started creating a course around that and I'm working with a couple of clients on that one-on-one.

But I'd love to be able to package the course and sell it, you know, as like an offering. But I also have coaching clients working through other blocks as well. So it's not, it's not 100 % black and white that you, that you can only work with me on career stuff. just, that is a lot of my lived experience has been hating work and wanting to just do work that I love, which I get to do now. So it's nice.

Sophie Biggerstaff (03:00)
Yeah.

Exactly,

it makes sense. You've gone through their own transformation. Now you're even in a better place to talk about that and help other people. And obviously you went through your qualification to become a counsellor as well. So you've got all of that kind of like science backed knowledge as well as your own lived experience. So I think that's a really powerful combo to be able to help people, which is amazing. And tell me a little bit about how you're feeling about your business right now.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (03:28)
I am feeling like I have a really long to do list and I have a lot of things that seem really obvious that need to be like automated. For example, cancellations and rescheduling.

It's been on my to-do list forever to just get like a public facing calendar. I've seen it with a lot of other coaches and therapists. I think I used it for you even when we were setting up this call. Just so that if a client needs to cancel or they need to reschedule, they can go in and do it themselves because I spend so much time.

emailing and I'm, you know, but then it's not just the client side of things. It's also the booking in of the podcast and any other life things that go into it. And so I feel like I have like three different calendars and it's only been in the last couple of weeks that now I'm navigating so many different time zones as well. that I like had one.

mess up that I realized last minute and I was like, my God, so this, seems like a really obvious pain point that just needs to be resolved. So I need to spend like a day doing that. need to, I think what I charge and cancellations is a really big one. And it's cancellations is a really hot topic in the therapy world. I think in the coaching world, it's more cut throat. So

I also feel a pull between the two, between coaching and therapy and where I need to be firm and where I need to be an understanding therapist who's like, it's okay. So I'm kind of pulled between those two things. And I think the other thing is just my own personal energy because I...

probably have energy leaks because of things like this in so many different directions. I'm just, I'm tired and I'm not able to give my podcast all the love and attention that I would like to give to it because it's something that I, it's like a passion project for me that I really love. And I also notice it with like, you know, just in my personal life, my friendships and my family.

I'm tired, you know, I'm visiting family right now and I see my little niece and nephew and they're just balls of energy and they're like Come do this come do this and I want to go to bed before they do I'm like Auntie needs to go to sleep now So yeah there

Sophie Biggerstaff (05:38)
you

So it definitely

sounds like you have a lot on your plate and like there's potentially some system issues essentially in the business which is not allowing you to properly leverage your time and the resources that you have to be able to serve the clients because then you're kind of stuck in a loop I imagine where you have the same thing happening on repeat like the clients

cancelling, you feel like you feel demotivated probably by that happening and then you're to be stuck in like this energy loop of my god I need to do all of these extra things in order for that to stop happening so it's kind of like you're in this energy loop where you're you're constantly chasing your tail but then you don't have the energy to fix the problem and then you're just going back into that cycle that pattern so the main issue I guess that we're speaking to is how do we

leverage your time in the most effective way that's going to give you the best results essentially so that you can have a healthier income level, a bit more stable income, not feel like you are constantly chasing your tail with your to-do list. So we'll look at maybe implementing some systems in your business and figuring out what's the best use of your time because it sounds like you've got a lot of different projects which obviously all mean something to you. They all do something different for your clients and serve in a different way which is amazing and it's good to have.

variety in what you do, but maybe it is too much energy being leaked in the wrong places. So let's look at like, what is the right places for you to be spending this energy? And how can we set that up properly so that you are automating things that don't need to be, you don't need to be emailing for, for example, and how can you really use your time in the most efficient way? Does that sound okay?

Meghan Fitzpatrick (07:02)
Yeah.

Yeah, that sounds good. like even hearing you say that one of the the major things that I've been grappling with for the past year since I became like full time therapist and not having any other income portals is the just the model of one on one therapy and client like that model.

it's not a good monetary system. unless you charge exorbitant amounts as your hourly rate, I just don't think it's a good, it's not sustainable in the long run unless you can charge a very, very high rate. So that has been part of my back and forth and why I look at

potentially wanting to do group work and selling courses and doing all this other stuff on the side because I feel that I shouldn't be relying solely on my one-on-one client therapist sessions as my sole source of income. That feels, just, doesn't feel, I feel like I don't want all the pressure to be on that. So like when someone does need to cancel,

Sophie Biggerstaff (08:20)
Mmm.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (08:27)
because life happens and people do need to cancel. I don't want it to be like, I feel so deflated. Like, oh, now I'm gonna be late paying this bill or, know, do you know what I mean? Like I feel like I need another income portal because it doesn't feel sufficient with the one-to-one.

Sophie Biggerstaff (08:38)
Absolutely.

Yeah,

I would be interested to understand if you feel comfortable to share like what are you charging for like an hourly session for example and are you just doing like one-off sessions or do you like group blocked sessions?

Meghan Fitzpatrick (08:54)
So I just do one to one sessions right now. I had started exploring doing group work, which is kind of where the podcast ended up coming from. It's like quite a bit of a story there. But I stopped doing that to do the podcast. Yeah, so it's just one to one. So it's just therapist or coach client sessions is.

all I do right now. Can you remind me the rest of the question?

Sophie Biggerstaff (09:17)
like

what are you charging for those one-on-one sessions? Like a ballpark, you don't have to give me the exact figure if that doesn't feel comfortable.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (09:21)
Yeah, well, it's it's

honestly it's evolved because I've been doing it for a while now. So some of the clients that I have, I've had for over a year. And so they're still paying a lower rate, whereas newer clients pay more. But it ranges from like, I have two clients that are on a concessionary rate. So they're, you know, like students or like very low income. So they're paying 50, like pounds.

And then up to the higher rate, which is like 110 pounds. Typically, it's an hour session. Some of the coaching things I say we can go up to 75 minutes. Yeah.

Sophie Biggerstaff (09:50)
Okay.

Yeah, I think

in terms of so for those sessions specifically are you labeled as their therapist or their coach?

Meghan Fitzpatrick (10:03)
The majority of them, I'm their therapist. I have a lot more therapy clients than coaching clients, but I would like to move more, I think, into having more coaching clients.

Sophie Biggerstaff (10:05)
Thank you.

Yeah, because the thing that I agree with you, what you said around like trading time for money on a one-on-one basis, it is very hard to scale that, especially if you are labeling yourself as a therapist, in which case, as we've already spoken about, in the UK, therapy is deemed a luxury and therapy isn't something like in the US, it's way more normal to have a therapist and pay good money for a therapist as well in the UK, where most of your clients are, it is not necessarily deemed.

something that's an essential thing for somebody to have, although we both know that actually it is way more essential than it should, it's made out to be in the UK. But obviously there's also a lot with that not being something that's factored into an everyday budget and that cost of living crisis, all of that is usually like way down the list and then people aren't willing to pay, don't understand the value of it basically is what I'm trying to say. So I do wonder if there is something

around your positioning and how you're positioning yourself as a therapist, which is blocking you from being able to charge the rates that you want to charge. Because when you talk about coaching, is that that would be a really, really low rate. If you were if you were just deemed as to be a coach, like 50 to 110 pounds an hour would be super, super low. Like the average I would say that you'd pay for an hour is anything between that 250 and 500 pounds an hour slash 90 minute session if you were

moving more towards the coach. So the first thing that I would suggest that we look at is maybe your positioning and the positioning of how you're putting yourself out there. Like for you, what's the thing that you get the most out of? in terms of this whole business, regardless of what your, how you're delivering the work, what's your goal? What's your mission? What do you want your clients to walk away with?

Meghan Fitzpatrick (11:57)
Seeing them make huge shifts in their life is the most rewarding thing for me, knowing that I've helped them. When they come back to me and say, thank you so much, like you really helped me through that. And upon reflection, the majority of those types of feedback have been on things that I've helped people with more from a coaching side, I think.

Sophie Biggerstaff (12:21)
Okay, so for me it sounds like, obviously we don't have hours and hours to delve into this today, but just on a top line level to give you something to think about, I really feel like the way that you're positioning yourself isn't attracting the people that will pay for that transformation. I think if you position yourself between 50 and 110 pounds per hour, you are attracting somebody that isn't actually that serious and that's going to show.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (12:22)
Yeah.

Sophie Biggerstaff (12:45)
in the cancellations, in the reschedules, you're not getting those clients on a consistent basis, constantly having to bring on new people. Because if they're only, if they're like, I'm not saying that 50 to 110 pounds isn't a lot of money for some people, that is a lot of money. And for somebody that's invested in therapy. But I think with the word therapy in general, again, I'm British, I lived in the UK, I've been in and out of the mental health system, also understand how it works here.

there is a still a stigma right around around therapy around paying for this as a service and I think when you are charging between 50 and 110 pounds per hour you're not getting payment upfront you are going to be attracting people that maybe do really want that and probably do really need that service from you but

they might get back out at last minute because they're scared or that they don't see it as a priority for them because work, like especially if you're going down the route of like helping people more with their careers and debunking the situations that are going on for them there, they're probably like just prioritizing other things, right? But so they're thinking, it's fine. Like we can reschedule that for another day or like not do it at all kind of thing. So I think it's the first thing to focus on for you would be your positioning.

And my suggestion from like looking at this externally would be that you shift everything towards coach, you label yourself as a coach, but obviously you talk about your therapist qualifications and that is your unique selling point as a coach because you are not just another coach that's labeling themselves as a coach that's doing it from lived experience, which I also think is a very good way to do it, but you actually have the training and you are also using your lived experiences as well.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (14:14)
Yeah.

Sophie Biggerstaff (14:26)
So my suggestion first of all, make sure you're attracting in the right people and to be able to feel more comfortable financially because you can charge way higher rates as a coach and the people that are seeking out coaching are going to be way more serious I think than the people that are seeking out therapy because therapy is just sometimes what people go to to get them through a certain situation. Coaching can go on for years, coaching can go on for a lot longer time and people that are seeking out a coach are way more serious.

about that and you could maybe specialize in career coaching with with the therapist training background for example like whatever it is that you specifically want to target the transformation that you want to give to people but i think at the moment being having that therapist and the coaching is quite broad and the people that you're going to get coming in maybe aren't going to be as serious as potentially if you were positioning yourself as a coach with all of these other things as your unique selling point or the thing that you specifically specialize in and so

I think looking at your positioning would be your first point. I don't think we've got probably time to go into it like right now if we want to look at some of the other things, but I think that would actually eliminate quite a lot of the other problems like the no-shows, the income piece. And then as you position yourself as a coach, you can obviously do the one-on-one and charge way higher time for money. You can also block out like sessions and say, right, a package of 10 sessions is this, or this is the program, this is the transformation that you're going to do.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (15:27)
I

Sophie Biggerstaff (15:50)
then can incorporate the courses as a baseline of that and have different layers. So I think for what you what it sounds like you want to achieve, coaching is probably more the direction that it would go in naturally. I don't know. What do you think? But for me saying that, is that surprising or is it it old information?

Meghan Fitzpatrick (16:05)
No, it's not surprising. I

think that the like the biggest block that I experienced in there is it is the rate and it is it's the you know, it's the headbutting of the two different industries and like what one should charge. But coaching is what originally

attracted me to that industry to begin with. And then I actually had an experience where I was doing a group coaching thing and there was someone in the group coaching that very clearly needed the help of a therapist. She was struggling with some pretty heavy mental health stuff and that was very obvious to the group. And I think the coach...

didn't know how to hold her and how to handle it. And I saw it handled very poorly. And that was like a big red flag to me. And I thought if I ever do this work, I want to be able to hold someone that comes to me with, you know, suicidal ideation or you know, a really traumatic

history, know, childhood abuse or whatever, I want to be able to handle that as a coach. And I think that's a big issue with the coaching industry. It's less regulated. And there's a lot of coaches that don't know how to handle that. So it was important to me to get the therapy training. But now that I'm out and I'm doing it, whilst I love helping people through those struggles as well.

I'm still more attracted to the coaching side of things. And my like role models in the industry are coaches, not therapists. There are therapists that I love like Gabor Mate, right? Like he's like God. But I'm more action oriented. So the coaching side of things. And also just even hearing you say charging 250, that I'm like, so I feel like I have like a bit of a money story thing that I probably need to.

Sophie Biggerstaff (17:49)
Money block. Yeah.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (17:52)
because like that feels so high to ask people to pay that. Like that's an edge for me that I need to look at.

Sophie Biggerstaff (17:57)
Yeah.

Definitely, so there's probably like everything comes with mindset blocks, right? Like normally any growth phase in our business is gonna come from mindset blocks. I'm sure you know that already, but like definitely looking into like what's the resistance to charging more? What's the resistance from fully transitioning to coaching? Does it feel safer to be a therapist because therapists are more credible? I mean, you can still call yourself, I guess, like...

therapeutic coach or something like that. don't know, like incorporate that in the name of whatever job title you decide for yourself, which is the beauty of what we do now is that we can we can create and call ourselves whatever we want and create a word that's going to really resonate with the people that you're trying to bring in. And I think trying to get on

very clear on exactly like what is that money block that's holding you back. I don't know if you had any thoughts about like what that might be or is there anything that comes to mind? you already done any money mindset work previously? Because I know we're part of the same manifestation membership, which definitely has a money mindset focus, especially right now they've got a money mindset challenge. So I would be interested to know if you've already worked through any part of that to get to where you are today. And then maybe this is just like the next, the next layer that you need to unfold.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (18:55)
you

Yeah.

I think it's the next layer. I've done so much of I mean honestly like the beginning of my journey, it's it's like self-worth like self-esteem love and money all connected right like I think the bar was like so Fucking low when I started like it's not even funny. It was like the bar was in hell. It was so low I've like done a lot to get it up to even where it currently is

Sophie Biggerstaff (19:26)
you

Meghan Fitzpatrick (19:29)
And now it's, I honestly, when I think about charging like much more than what I'm currently charging, I wouldn't be able to do it under the lens or under the title of therapist. Cause I immediately, the first thing I think of is a couple of people that I trained with and like, I just can feel like a judgy.

almost projection or response from them, like, like you can't charge that like I can, I can see that and that makes me like, it does not a good feeling. So definitely like opinions of other professionals in my field. And I've had a lot of mixed, I get a lot of mixed advice on like what I should do and what I should charge. And it's conflicting for me.

Sophie Biggerstaff (20:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, and what do you think you should do and what should you charge because why are listening to anybody else's opinions on it?

Meghan Fitzpatrick (20:21)
I know, it's like,

yeah, it is, I think, yeah, as we unpick it, it's kind of like, I feel like I would be like being disloyal to my therapy training. Like I'm not abandoning it in any way and it was really helpful. like, but I definitely feel more aligned with charging significantly more.

Sophie Biggerstaff (20:33)
Okay.

Yeah.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (20:45)
having like a no, like if you cancel, you cancel, but you pay for the session. You booked in this time. Like I loved the form that I filled for you that at the end it said respect my time. I wanna say that. I wanna like have that stamped on my forehead with everyone that I work with. Like, come on. Like the being messed around thing is starting to feel really.

Sophie Biggerstaff (20:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (21:08)
it's bringing up a lot of resentment in me where previously I would be like, oh, it's okay, like da da da. And now I'm like, I've hit my edge with that. And it was, you know, it's the love money thing. It's reflected, like I think about older dating experiences I had like over the last 10 years. And like, it's crazy. Like just the amount of growth that I've had from a lot of the work of the program that we're both in, like, yeah.

Sophie Biggerstaff (21:34)
I resonate a lot with everything you're saying and I've also gone on my own journey through all of the things you've just mentioned and when I first started my business back in London I had the same thing and if somebody didn't... the reason why that respect your time thing is on there is because I've gone through that same thing and I've had to really put in very very clear boundaries in the first year of my business I had none, none, boundaries whatsoever. I take on all of the people, take on all the clients, do all the work, would reschedule calls, accommodate other people.

Actually, who are you running your business for? Yes, you want to serve a client, but you're running your business for yourself because you want to do this. You've got a mission. You are running your business for yourself. You have to advocate for yourself. You have to protect yourself. You are self-employed. We don't have the same benefits as we do in a full-time job. If somebody cancels a meeting, it doesn't just cancel our time. It cancels our income. So you have to stand up for yourself a little bit more and say, like, this is what I'm willing to accept. And you have the systems in place.

to be able to accommodate for that because it's all well and good putting in like payment, payment walls and things like that, or like payment terms and things like that. But if you don't have the systems to back it up and actually do those things for you, it's gonna be really hard for you to actually, actually get those things working and operating in the way that you want them to work. there's a couple of things. Obviously we know that you've got the money mindset block and I think you'll take away the fact that maybe

Meghan Fitzpatrick (22:49)
Yeah.

Sophie Biggerstaff (22:54)
figure out like how are you positioning yourself? Are you positioning yourself as a coach or a therapist? There's probably a piece around like looking at like why are you feeling so much aversion to moving it across to coaching and thinking about like what the therapist friends are thinking. I completely understand why that is coming up because you all went through the same training. Yeah, I know.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (23:13)
It's like so frowned upon, like, ooh, coaching. I'm like,

I was really open about that throughout our training, that I'm very solution-focused and I'm more interested in coaching or like more drawn to that. I just think you bigger transformations.

Sophie Biggerstaff (23:26)
Yeah.

I agree and the fact that you have the therapist background is amazing because you can really bring that in and like I say that's your unique selling point. You will market yourself as the coach with the therapy background. You know like you can talk about the transformations, you can talk about your qualification, you can talk about your experience that you've had in that setting and really link that back because I think people particularly where the word coach is a little bit frowned upon people want evidence.

to suggest why they should work with this specific coach. Are they going to actually get what they're paying for? And in some cases, I've seen some very bad experiences coaching. In fact, I have a lot of people that come to me after they've had a really bad experience with another business coach that hasn't got any actual experience in what that is that they're trying to sell. So I think as long as you can position yourself in a way that feels good to you, you're not worrying about what anybody else is thinking about it.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (24:12)
Mm-hmm.

Sophie Biggerstaff (24:20)
but you can still incorporate that element of the therapy. Nothing's been lost, only to gain, right, in that certain situation. And then the second part of it is to put in the systems that are gonna eliminate all of these other things that have been happening. with the cancellations, for example, attracting in the people that aren't quite the right fit for you, making sure that your pricing structure, and you don't have to jump from 50 to 250 right straight away. You can go incrementally. I would think about it like,

you should never base your pricing just based off of time. So never look at it from a time perspective, but think about that transformation. Think about how much would that ideal person realistically be able to spend on that product. And also think about your, you paid for that training, I'm assuming, right? You paid for your therapy qualification. You've gone through, probably, I know you worked in the NHS, so quite low pay to get to where you want to be. Exactly.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (25:10)
years and years years and it was so

expensive.

Sophie Biggerstaff (25:14)
You've invested so much of your own time, your own money in this training. There is a value proposition there that you need to bring into your pricing as well. So really getting clear on your pricing to do with the, the new position in the input out, and then you need the systems. Now, my best suggestion for you would be to subscribe to a system, something like DubSado. DubSado is what you booked, this session with me through, and DubSado essentially is a client management system. I highly, highly recommend something like that. There might be other alternatives now.

But Dove Sado manages your contracts, it manages your payments, it manages your invoicing, it manages your calendar, it manages your emails, workflows. You can automate pretty much anything. And you can pay somebody on Fiverr, for example, or Upwork to set all of this up for you. Well, you don't even need to necessarily touch it. Obviously you can if you want, but you can also find a solution. Someone set this all up for you. That is going to be like, if you have a natural client management system,

Meghan Fitzpatrick (25:56)
Okay.

Sophie Biggerstaff (26:06)
That is going to be a really easy way for you to incorporate a contract with a client. So again, going back to what I saying, you have to advocate for yourself, have to back yourself. We are not employed with self-employed contracts always. Even if you're just speaking to a client once, have some kind of contract in place that is like... Yeah, definitely.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (26:22)
Yeah, I'm really firm with the contracting because, yeah, I mean that's the

therapy background. The contracting was like a huge part of our training. I have a contract,

Sophie Biggerstaff (26:29)
Yeah, exactly. With payment terms also. And I would

shift your payment terms to be upfront, honestly. If you're just going to do a one-off session with somebody, if it is literally just one session, they're paying upfront. Or if they're block booking, they're paying like a deposit and then they can pay on a payment plan, something like that. again, carve your back, think about like what you need, not necessarily what that client needs. Obviously then you can look at, assess it on a case by case basis. If someone is showing up every week and they can't afford to pay that specific week, obviously you can like, you can custom.

it for that person for whatever needs to happen but don't go off of the assumption that somebody will naturally just pay you when they're supposed to pay you because they won't.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (27:07)
Yeah, well, I've learned

that now, but in the last three months, I've changed my contract. So anyone that has started with me in the last three months, you have to pay upfront. But it's trickier with people that I've been working with for a long time to change their contract, something they already signed. So that's where it's been the stickiest. But anyone new that I'm working with, they have to pay upfront.

Sophie Biggerstaff (27:18)
Amazing.

Yeah, I mean, it's tricky, but it's also businesses evolve. There's inflation, things happen, things change. Like having to change those contracts is quite a normal thing. Like even in jobs, if a company gets acquired, for example, your contract changes. So I think if you can like take away any like personal emotion or any any kind of obviously been working with that person for a long time, it feels a bit icky. No, again, it's your business, you get to decide the rules. So if you want to change that contract, if that feels like something that

that partnership or that client relationship is no longer working in the current form, it's time to shift it. Like regardless of if that's going to upset that person, you're going to lose a client. Know that somebody more aligned is going to come in and adhere to the new terms that you've got because it's not sustainable for you. Even if you've been working with that client for two years, obviously you're going to make exceptions for that client in certain ways, but you're going to have to look at what is a non-negotiable for you going into this new phase of business. Like how much you want to charge, what time, what are the rules, that kind of thing.

I think that's really important for you to implement in this new phase. So how does that all feel like in terms of what we've spoken about? Does that feel like it makes sense or does any of it feel like, that's scary, don't want to change that?

Meghan Fitzpatrick (28:44)
No, I think it was good for me to work through that I like it. That is the shift I need to make. I just need to step more confidently into the coaching thing and focus on that. Like I started changing my description on my Google business page and I spent like the entire day. This was like two months ago trying to change because I wanted to keep therapists in there.

Like I feel like it's like just a personal thing that I want the word therapist to be in there, but I definitely want to step into more working as a coach. So I think I had said coaching through a therapeutic lens. ⁓ But I also really liked what you just said, like therapeutic coach. That is my, yeah. I think that that's key, yeah.

Sophie Biggerstaff (29:21)
Yeah, perfect.

Yeah, whatever resonates.

Amazing and then I know when you came into the call you were like I've got such a long to-do list the other thing I would suggest that you look at is Needs versus wants like what are the things that actually can move the needle because what what I think many many business owners are guilty of myself included is Working on like the the low-fri stuff right like the things that are like yeah, I could update my website Yeah, I could spend a day reworking my Google profile. Yeah, I could do like do this still thing but like what are the things

that are actually gonna move the needle for you? What are the things that need to be done right now? Because I know you mentioned that when in your, at the beginning and also in your consultation form with me, you were like, I wanna do retreats, I wanna do courses, I want the podcast, I've got this, I wanna do that, I wanna do this. Which is amazing, but which one of those is actually gonna get you closer to the goal that you have? I think this positioning shift is gonna be the first step to going down the route of quite a lot of those things anyway. But.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (30:25)
Mm-hmm.

Sophie Biggerstaff (30:25)
I think it's about like really looking at that to-do list and be like, do I just want to do this because it takes something off my to-do list or do I want to do this because it needs to be done and it's going to move the needle for me and look at it as like priority tasks versus non-priority can do when you're on a low energy day slash something that's a bit like easy when you need like just a task, a filler task almost, but focus like 80%, 70 to 80 % of your attention on the tasks that actually going to move the needle. And then I think that to-do list will seem a lot more manageable.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (30:45)
you

Yeah, I think the biggest thing right now is the calendar and pick it's picking the system because I have looked at so many like I was looking at Kajabi for a while. My website is Squarespace and they have a calendar system. They bought Acuity. I don't know if you know Acuity. Yeah, which like so I was thinking I was going to do the Squarespace calendar system because my website is already Squarespace.

Sophie Biggerstaff (31:11)
Yeah.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (31:19)
but maybe I should look at Dubsado.

Sophie Biggerstaff (31:21)
I would recommend for what you do, I really would recommend I've started because it will house everything and help you just manage everything under one platform. And it also means that if you changed your website, for example, you'd have an external system that can just integrate with whichever platform that you're currently using. I am all about like finding systems that can do many things in one because systems are expensive. And if you can find one that covers all of the things, it actually makes the client's life and your life so much easier because it's going to be a really

Meghan Fitzpatrick (31:37)
Okay.

Sophie Biggerstaff (31:49)
streamlined approach.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (31:51)
That's why I was also quite keen or I felt like Kajabi would be a good one because they do all the things as well. But.

Sophie Biggerstaff (31:58)
Kajabi is great if you're a course creator. I use Kajabi because I have courses. ⁓ I think for what you need right now, it's probably not the right platform. I actually use Kajabi and Dubsado together because Kajabi doesn't necessarily give me all of the things that Dubsado does. It's a different tool. I think from what you're talking to me about, like the scheduling, the client invoices, the payment stuff, all of that would be solved under a Dubsado.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (32:03)
Hmm.

Okay. Okay.

Okay, yeah, Kajabi's like too many steps ahead for me. There's also my problem, like I think too far ahead, I just need to get the here and now like really smooth before I jump too far ahead.

Sophie Biggerstaff (32:28)
I think so at the moment. ⁓

Definitely. Well, let's look at some actions for you so that we can literally think about the here and now and also a little bit further in the future as well because I'm very action oriented, very much want to show you what actions to take going forward based on the conversation that we've had. So we'll look at one action you can take in the next 24 hours, one action you can take this week and one action you can take this month. I think the first one in this next 24 hours, because this is going to help you get really clear.

on everything else is your positioning and looking at like how do you want to position yourself going forward and thinking about that and not necessarily coming to a decision in the next 24 hours but just having a really in-depth thought about it of what could you offer going forward to make you feel comfortable and set yourself up for success in the financial side of things as well.

And then in terms of an action for this week, I would suggest that looking into systems and seeing what systems could you potentially do. So if it is a Dubsado, if it is a Kajabi, if it is even just for an interim period, Google Calendar works really well. Like Google Calendar has a scheduler.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (33:37)
use

Google Calendar right now, but my issue is that I have like three. So it's marrying. Yeah.

Sophie Biggerstaff (33:43)
Okay, merging them. Exactly,

yeah. So thinking about like how, what system can you incorporate into your business right now to really streamline all of the things. And then obviously a follow on from that this month is to start that whole repositioning and that's those systems, start implementing those in the business and like start talking. If you're doing any marketing, start changing the way that you are doing the marketing to focus more on the coaching.

start increasing the prices, like actually execute the things that you're thinking about over the next week and take action to put those in place in your business.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (34:19)
Yes. I agree. It does. And when you said to think about my positioning, like honestly, all I can hear now is therapeutic coach. I think that that marries the two industries perfectly. And then therapy is still the leading word, but it's not therapist. It's therapeutic coach. I like that. I really like that. Yeah. I'm glad that you said that. Yeah.

Sophie Biggerstaff (34:19)
Does that feel achievable?

Love it.

I love it, amazing.

You're welcome. And so do you feel a bit clearer now about your next steps in what's going to happen in your business? Amazing. And how do you feel about the general challenge that we spoke about at the end at the beginning and how we've what we've worked through today? How do you feel about that?

Meghan Fitzpatrick (34:49)
Yes. Yes.

I feel good about, I feel good. What I haven't kind of resolved is what the podcast is, but I think I'm, the way that I have felt about it, especially over the last like month or two because of the connections I've made through it, is that it's a really good marketing tool for me right now.

And I actually think, especially if I'm leaning more on the coaching side of like, you know, for my income, that that is, that that will be more aligned with the podcast.

Sophie Biggerstaff (35:29)
I agree. don't think the podcast should be used as an income. You shouldn't be relying on that as an income driving revenue because podcasts can take years to materialize into any income. So the podcast for me, based on your business model,

would be that place to nurture your audience and get people in. So get your clients in to make sure that they trust you on a deeper level. Get people that are in your audience on social media or wherever else you market into your podcast so that they can understand the quality of the work that you're doing and then they're gonna naturally fall into your coaching.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (36:03)
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.

Sophie Biggerstaff (36:04)
amazing. Well

thanks so much for joining me today for this episode. hope that's really helped bring some clarity in your next steps in business. Yeah thank you so much.

Meghan Fitzpatrick (36:13)
Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, that was really helpful.

Sophie Biggerstaff (36:15)
I love this conversation today with Megan. I could really relate to everything she was saying because I've personally gone through so many of these issues in my business, myself, especially the one around money mindset. There is so many things coming up every time you go to a new level in your business that you have to unblock when it comes to money. It is such an important subject to really be able to be able to charge your worth and know the value of your services and the positioning of your services.

So I'm really looking forward to seeing which actions Megan takes from the ones that we discussed and seeing the success of her business in the very near future. In the meantime, if like Megan, you have been stuck on having your energy very dispersed and you're not really focused on the things that you want to be focused on in your business, on your online business, I can definitely support you with that. If you would like a coaching session like the one I did today with Megan, I have that available on my website for you to book into my calendar right now and I can help you debunk those problems that you're currently facing.

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of the Remote CO Life podcast.