Seven years into her coaching career, Becky Mollenkamp is honing her craft on what she enjoys the most

Discover how the mind coach and veteran creator Becky Mollenkamp is evolving her creator business to do more of what she enjoys.

What would happen If you let go of the "shoulds' and started following your gut instincts?

For mindset trainer Becky Mollenkamp , choosing to stop being a'shoulder was a game changer -- and that includes her profession.

Becky aids people to make the change from "small proprietor" to CEO, and build profitable businesses that aren't burning out. With her Gutsy Boss brand, she has assisted thousands of customers release their own 'shoulds' and define success on their terms.

Her experience spans nearly 20 years of experience in the field of entrepreneurship to her work, including owning a six-figure agency for content marketing before beginning her own coaching company in the year 2015.

Recently, we spoke with Becky to hear the evolution of her business over the last few years, and to review her journey as a creator. Her company is currently going through a change as she hones in the area of working with small business owners and their consultants and employees.

Read on to find out how Becky has developed her business through trusting her instincts and letting go of the "shoulds" -- and has helped other business owners to do the same.

Finding her calling as a mindset coach

Although Becky is an entrepreneur for nearly twenty years, coaching wasn't always a part of her plan.

"What drove me to the path of coaching was that my brother's death in 2010 of a heroin overdose. This really shaken me out of my slumber," Becky explains.

"I was living a life of 'shoulds', performing the routines and doing everything women are supposed to do. That helped me realize life's way too short to live one that's not exactly what you want to live."

"I didn't know what I was looking for. It was just clear that it wasn't that," Becky remembers. She shut down her writing company and returned to her parents' home. It was then time to do the internal process to figure out how she wanted to do with her life.want her life to be as.

Becky started to build her writing company. "It was something I was familiar with and could be successful at. But I realized what I really wanted to accomplish was help other people break away from the "shoulds"."

She then began to coach.

"I realized I could help people with the same stuff which I've gone through. That's the reason I realized this is what I'm meant to do. This is my passion."

The work she did as an owner of an agency and her the desire to assist people made Becky's unique viewpoint an ideal match for mindset coaching.

"I'm an expert in strategy or consultant, but rather I'm a coach. Therefore, I assist people in coming to their own conclusions and their own understanding about the things they would like to achieve in their life or their business, and then help to move towards that goal," Becky explains.

As a way of helping other people to live their values in a more full way, she applies her own beliefs to the work. "I'm an empathetic coach for women, which means that I honor lived experience as well as being trauma-informed. the coaching I provide is about compassion, no blaming and shaming."

Inspiring by her experience and experience, Becky began building her online coaching business -- but it was not without a lot of "shoulds" too.

Distinguishing the noise of what an internet-based business must look like

In response to questions about the difficulties in establishing her coaching company, Becky laughs. "There was no challenge I did not face. I feel like I had every obstacle."

The fight over the "shoulds' played out here, also. "I believe the most difficult problem was the voices in the internet space about how a business will look like, how you have to manage it and the tasks you need to do for success," she says.

In retrospect, Becky finds this common myth that says business owners who don't start out with a full-time commitment don't believe in themselves--harmful and privileged. "I didn't know that at the time, and I was filled with guilt and feeling like I wasn't doing a good job because I still had writing [to pay the billsto survive]."

The woman recalled thinking "Why couldn't I make the coaching thing more successful more quickly? Was there something wrong with me?"

The truth is, most individuals aren't able to afford jumping right into a new business full-time -- and that's acceptable! It's a slow process, and it doesn't mean that you're less determined or worthy of being an entrepreneur.

"I needed to complete my own thing to free me from those guilt and shame, and realize that advice [to go all-in] was not realistic for most people."

"The most difficult part initially was to realize the possibility of gradually shifting from writing to the new industry." She focused on shifting her workload by 25% each year. The initial year, it was 75percent writing and 25% coaching. "Honestly, this is the first year that's 0% writing," Becky tells us.

"That was a gradual transition. Letting it go and then getting rid of the shame about that, to know that it's okay is probably the most effective and most efficient way to start a new business, instead of feeling like they have to go all into it or that they don't believe in themselves."

Becky had a hard time treating herself as the CEO to see the value in her work and think big in the big.

"You can be self-employed, become a sole entrepreneur and you could be a small business owner with just a few consultants . However, you're still the head, you are the CEO and you're the visionary," she emphasizes.

"It's about confidence in being there with a statement that says, 'I've got the ropes. I'm able to do this.'"

The CEO's mindset is a central theme of her interaction with clients.

A more targeted client (while still serving her broader audience)

Becky's career is at a point of transition: She's narrowing her focus to coaching midsize entrepreneurs as well as team members .

There are many motives for this change:

It aligns her work even closer to her personal experience and learnings as a business manager.

Her time and talents in exchange for a fee earns Becky the biggest amount of money.

The work she loves most.

Based on her own experience, Becky wants her clients to feel "the shift that it makes internally when you begin treating your company like a business and treat yourself like a CEO."

"I am working with individuals, and I still do, but I'm now looking to work more with females, typically, who own midsize businesses," she describes. "It's about work-life harmony for them, and also helping their employees, or advisors to provide them with coaching so that they can also create better work-life harmony."

This change is going to make an impact on Becky's bottom line, too.

"You charge more [for coaching], so you only need to get one person to earn the same amount of money out of those guidebooks for $7, or even a course worth $200. You have to offer many more courses and guides], so I must have lots of people on my list because there is a small percentage who change into something." Clients who coach tend to refer their friends, which leads to greater potential earnings for coaches later on.

However, Becky plans to continue offering her services to an even wider range of people, even if they aren't suitable for her new , one-on one coaching.

"I'm still holding onto my company in the same way I've run it. That's Gutsy Boss, and helping individuals as well as businesses," Becky explains. "I do not want to abandon those people in the dust. I've been working with individuals for some time and a lot people listen to my podcast or are on my email list."

In the spirit of helping those people, Becky has repurposed a majority of her information to create Gutsy Guides that help tackle specific issues like setting boundaries and making huge demands, as well as overcoming imposter's syndrome.

"Generally the people who are in that category are mid-career professionals rather than spending a lot of one-on-one for them, I give them an array of tools that they can use to help them self-coach on these things," she says.

Now, when someone discovers Becky's work they can fit in one of two categories:

Potential clients for coaching

Individuals who can benefit by Becky's self-guided mini-course , self-study program , and Gutsy Guides  which are all available on

How can she determine what segment a potential customer fits into?

With automation, segmentation, and some Inspiration from The Golden Girls.

Automating, segmentation and a fun quiz to find potential clients who are the best services

Becky has a quiz on her site: "Which business owner is you?" The six-question test (built using Interact ) tells visitors the Golden Girls-inspired business owner personalities they like: Newbie (Rose), Flirt (Blanche), Pro (Dorothy) (or Sage (Sophia).

Each persona represents a different phase of business ownership starting from the beginning to an experienced professional.

"To be precise, this is a much more sophisticated email opt-in," Becky cautions fellow creators. "I wouldn't start with something similar to this, if you don't yet have an opt-in... I began by downloading a simple file. It's the easiest way to go."

Once you're ready to segment your audience A more sophisticated opt-in offering like Becky's quiz could help you do so. You can use that segmentation to automatically approach them with special offers that are tailored to their particular preferences or levels of experience.

She automates the email series via ConvertKit This means that she won't need to waste hours sending the appropriate products to the correct individuals.

"It takes place in the night," she describes. "They're getting their email series in the event that they wish to purchase the guides, they're priced super affordably. This makes it a no-brainer, and it's an easy process."

Becky knows that will grow as her company expands

Since Becky's company has grown and changed, so has the method she employs .

Becky added (and often deleted) new products as her business grew and expanded, which included online downloads, training courses and group coaching.

Now, she's gearing up to launch her 2023 Gutsy Accountability program that includes group coaching, downloadable resources, 1:1 coaching with Becky or live workshops, depending on the programs clients choose.

"I enjoy being able to do group coaching using because all of the assets I'd like to share can be housed there. Clients have a place to go and get the items. I am able to create assets I already have accessible to them. This is a lot much easier. And they can pay through . I don't have to worry about anything."

's embeddable buy buttons and checkout experiences make it simple for clients to purchase products such as Gutsy Accountability without leaving the site's landing page.

Through the course of her creation she has allowed Becky the flexibility to explore these different product types to determine what's best for her clients and herself.

"Almost every week I get someone to call me to say, 'I know you use , tell me about it, that's something I'm always glad to answer," she says.

"I think it's good to let people know that it's possible to build upon this foundation... There's everything here for an affordable price."

Trust your instincts and build a business that's true to you.

Becky's final advice for creators is exactly the same advice she gives her clients: Trust your gut.

"Listen to your gut. A majority of those whom I consult... they have all of these doubts, and aren't confident This causes them to feel stuck, which makes them feel that they're not progressing on their venture. It's downright demoralizing. It was a feeling that I'll always remember," she says.

"In first place, trying to trust yourself is important to having any success."

Becky's coaching business has grown significantly since her first course launched on in 2018. But her core and the soul of her coaching -- helping others let go of those 'shoulds' -- remains steadfast. We're excited to discover where the next four years (and even beyond!) will lead Becky and her business.