Case Study: Kelly Whitsel
From One Final Give-It-A-Go to Successfully Validating Her Coaching Business
Kelly was at a crossroads with her online business, wondering whether she should continue forward or let her idea go altogether.
Though she loved the idea of the flexibility starting a health coaching business could provide her family of six, she also had her physical therapy day job to fall back on. It was time for her to decide once and for all if her business idea was worth it.
“My main goal I wanted to achieve by joining VALIDATE was to decide whether I am going to pursue owning my own business or not.
A secondary goal [was clarifying], if so, who is my target audience?
Because I was really struggling to know who to narrow in on.”
Kelly Whitsel, a working mom of four herself, helps busy moms improve their health
without overwhelm through her online coaching business, Claim Health Coaching.
She became interested in VALIDATE because she’s been trying to get her business off the ground for
a few years now, and every time she moved forward, it seemed like another monumental life
circumstance would surface that stopped her progress. From dealing with the COVID pandemic,
to finding out she was pregnant, big obstacles (good and bad) kept creeping in.
God worked out the timing perfectly for Kelly to find VALIDATE right when she felt like she needed to finally make a “once and for all decision” about the direction of her business. She was finally at a point where her baby was a bit older, and she was getting more sleep and thinking clearly.
“I just felt for the first time in a while, ‘Yep, you need to do this,’ clearly in my head, this just needs to happen. When I told my husband about it, he said, ‘Uh, yeah, you definitely need to do this.
The money is not an issue right now. It’s worth it.’”
She could have determined that all the barriers she faced were signs to quit, but she chose to move forward with VALIDATE because she truly felt she needed to give her business one final chance. She knew the program would lead her toward the answer she wanted: either “yes” or “no” on her business idea.
Even though Kelly wanted to know the answer to her question, “Should I continue with my business?” her biggest hesitation about joining VALIDATE boiled down to fears of actually finding out that answer.
“I thought, this is going to be my final, give-it-a-try and see what happens, and whatever comes out of this is what I'm going with. If the product went through the ringer and came out as something that's worth pursuing, then I would pursue it. And if it went through and it came out as something not worth pursuing, I would let it go.”
Initially, Kelly felt so overwhelmed by all the things she needed to do to set her business up successfully and make consistent money. She knew most of the things that needed to happen but was stuck in overwhelm and not able to make forward progress. Through VALIDATE, that all changed.
Kelly had three major takeaways from her time in VALIDATE:
Performing quality market research so she could narrow down who her target clients are and understand what their number one problem is. “I’m forcing myself to really discover who my target audience is, name it, and just go with it.”
Experience with the beta launch of her business idea. Kelly says she would have NEVER done a launch on her own or, if she did, it would have taken her a long time to go through with it. “I've been saying for a while, I would like doing workshops, but I would not have just started doing them if I didn't have to through this program.”
Learning to promote herself and her coaching, which was out of her comfort zone. “I’m really grateful that Gillian, through the program, pushed me into having to do these things.”
The number one thing that Kelly accomplished in VALIDATE was having to put herself out there through her free workshop. She successfully promoted it, and 24 target clients attended.
You know what? On her live workshop date, Kelly lost her voice!
Did that stop her?
Not this time. She still showed up, and she still hosted the workshop.
And through that experience, she learned another valuable lesson:
“You can still do this and move forward in the midst of real life. In the midst of kids being sick, and you only slept so many hours last night. There's not going to be a perfect scenario ever in your life. You can do this in the midst of the life you're living right now.”
She had 45 register for the workshop, 24 attend, and 5 people sign up for her 6-session package at $160 each. Her validation threshold was 3 clients with at least $250 in revenue, and far surpassing that, she found her answer to the question, “Should I keep moving forward with my coaching business?” to be a solid YES!
“I was super excited, immediately followed by terrified about whether I can do this or not, then stabilized to excited and uncomfortable but moving forward! I am so grateful for this process and all of the help I’ve received from the VALIDATE team!”