Tribal Origins: My Journey To Coaching Online
Great things start small
It was January 2021 and my side-hustle was at a crossroad.
I had been building my dog bandana biz, Toasted Rye, for 18 months and grown it from…
sewing bandanas myself
selling them on Etsy
shipping them out of my house
To…
creating my own designs
expanding my product line to include collars and leashes
using an international manufacturer for production
getting products in 10+ local dog stores in Philly
selling online via Amazon FBA (they handled all shipping)
I felt confident and inspired by how much the biz had grown.
But I also started to dread it all.
Joys Of The Journey
My two favorite parts of getting to this phase of the biz were bringing the products to life and creating the relationships that got them in local stores.
My days were filled with…
production updates from my manufacturer in China that required approvals or change requests
updates from the Virtual Assistant in the Philippines that I hired to scrub the web for email contacts of every pet store owner within a 20 mile radius of Philly
replies from store owners after I reached out asking for shelf space in their store
And I was doing it all out of a tiny row home in Philly.
I felt like an online business ninja.
Growing In The Wrong Direction
But what began as my fun and energizing creative outlet had turned into stress around $5k+ production costs and uncertainty on how to grow my sales channels.
I had a little bit of cash from coming in from the “bulk” orders of a few dozen products from the local stores in Philly.
But we were in the thick of Covid shut downs, in-person shopping was limited and the stores I got product in didn’t need more inventory as quickly as I hoped.
And there I was with $5k worth of product (hundreds of units of inventory) and what felt like $0 worth of skills to sell it all.
With in-store sales stalled, I turned to Amazon.
And that meant I needed to learn ads/keywords/SEO and start playing a game of “pay for clicks to get customers.”
Which would require more spend.
It felt like my exciting, hands on bandana biz had been diminished to a hands off operation driven by spreadsheets and formulas.
And that bored the shit out of me.
I hired another VA who specialized in Amazon keywords and eCommerce growth.
But I was pinching pennies, not getting the results I wanted and not interested in taking on the pressure of throwing my credit card down into what felt like an abyss of uncertainty.
I took my lessons…
a physical product biz requires a lot of upfront capital
to grow an eCommerce brand, you need a significant budget allocated to growing brand awareness (ads, influencer campaigns, etc.)
And decided to change my business model.
Action Creates Confidence
3 months earlier, I crossed the finish line of the Black Forest 100k.
It was my first 100k. And it broke my brain on what I was capable of.
The race started at midnight and trekked through 63+ miles of rugged state forest in central PA with over 12,000 feet of climbing and descending.
And I endured it all.
My desire to escape my mundane and normal life centered around a 9-5 and a gym routine was no longer just a dream in my head.
I was doing it in real life.
I was succeeding. I had proof. And I felt undeniable.
After Black Forest 100k, I felt like I had permission to tell the world.
I posted my first “before and after” pic
I started speaking more openly on my mindset
I shared the fitness habits and tactics that worked for me
Audit Your Feed
Throughout my bandana biz build, I found a niche corner of Twitter that identified as Money Twitter.
It was a collection of people who used their Twitter accounts to build online businesses right on the social platform.
My old Twitter feed was pure distraction and flooded with sports news/gossip and political memes.
I wiped all of that stuff from my following (even my favorite sports team accounts) and curated a feed centered around…
personal development
building online businesses
helping other people get better
The lesson I learned:
I could brainwash myself into being whoever I wanted just by creating a social media feed that encourages the right actions and habits.
The most common types of businesses I saw were in fitness and email marketing. But there were some on how to buy/sell index funds in the stock market, how to become a ghostwriter, it could be anything.
There were even people who had coaching businesses that specialized in helping you build a coaching business of your own.
There were no limits on the ways people were building skills and monetizing them.
The accounts I learned from most had service businesses or created digital products like eBooks and courses.
No matter the business, the process I observed was the same:
share “free” content on your Twitter feed [build authority]
share client testimonials and success stories [build credibility]
post free/low cost digital products to teach your followers more [build more of both and get people’s contact info/in your funnel]
post “call to actions” that would direct people to DM you [engage with them 1 on 1]
pitch higher ticket offers for coaching services [get on discovery/sales calls]
Being exposed to it all showed me how simple a one-person online business could be.
New Inspiration? Updated Vision
All the exposure to service/coaching businesses and digital products expanded my vision.
I went from “I want to own an eCommerce business” to:
own an eCommerce business
create content about how I’m building and growing it
build services/digital products to help people do it themselves
share fitness content and document my journey in endurance sports
I wanted to live an interesting life that blended online biz savvy with entertaining content creation.
Then I wanted to sprinkle in some of my fitness interests and show that I wasn’t just some Commerce nerd behind a screen.
I was doing big things in real life. And pushing myself in many different areas.
That was the vision I chased for all of 2020.
Until I arrived at this particular crossroad in January 2021.
Vision Revision
With the momentum of my 100k (and continued confirmation that growing Toasted Rye on Amazon would require more and more upfront capital) I saw fitness coaching as a more profitable biz model (with better cash flow).
Instead of paying thousands $$$ for bulk product, paying for adds and more…
I could create a high ticket coaching package that got me paid a few thousand bucks for my time and knowledge.
Before being exposed to Money Twitter, I thought you needed to work at a gym to coach fitness. Or you needed to have a specific degree. Or certification.
But after witnessing so many people offer services online (and help clients find success), I knew you only needed one thing: The courage to tell people you could help them
Stepping into that courage was still a grueling internal process.
I had lost 60+ lbs. I had built an online business. I had run 100k. And I had been sharing my progress through it all.
But I still didn’t feel ready.
I was scared of putting myself out there.
I was afraid of what people that I knew from the past would say.
I doubted that anyone would want to learn from me.
But I went forward anyway.
Get It Live and Get It Going
I had an overwhelming desire to tell the world how I had made such positive change in my life.
So on top of just Tweeting one-off fitness and mindset tips, I made my first eBook.
I took strategies I learned from people up ahead of me (on how to build eBooks) and stole them for myself.
I wrote it in Google Docs
Formatted and designed it in Canva
Uploaded it for free download on Gumroad
It didn’t cost me a dime.
Want to see the book? You can download it here.
What Do You Need To Feel Legit?
Having an eBook elevated me from talking online to making online.
I felt like the real deal.
And launching that book felt like my way of telling the world:
I used to be overweight, lazy and would quit on myself often.
But I’ve changed.
I’m new and improved. It feels fkn amazing.
And I want to help you make this positive change for yourself too.
My daily content was becoming less and less about eCommerce and Toasted Rye.
And more about how to win the war within and start dominating life.
I had hired my first biz coach, Zach Homol, in November 2020 to help me build toward my initial vision with Toasted Rye.
But now that I was making the shift to fitness, he was supporting me through it all.
We went on a 1 on 1 retreat in Feb. ‘21 to build the bones of what would become my first fitness coaching program.
After a few months of perfecting my offer being scared shitless to take a leap and offer coaching, I sent my first Tweet looking for clients.
In my next Tribal Origins post, I’ll share how I landed my first clients, how I experimented with different offers and evolved into coaching endurance and triathlon.
Thanks so much for reading.