Ericka Ige Coaching

If I see one more post on Beyoncé’s internet saying that hustle is necessary to growing a business I will scream.

Or I’ll dance to Break My Soul, either way you catch my drift.

It’s been a non stop mantra on this app since June. If you’ve been around the Instagram block for awhile this isn’t new but it is crazy how normalized this messaging has become.

Meanwhile I’m noticing people at record rates saying how tired, exhausted, sick they’ve been.

How they just couldn’t mentally handle coming on here. How they’ve been gone awhile to just be.

It’s no surprise. We weren’t meant to grind ALL THE TIME.

Is it bad to work for short spurts or seasons? No! But it’s not meant to be an ongoing thing.

The problem has come from people not understanding that hustle has been glamorized to be sexy and monetized.

It’s been so engrained in Black & People of Color cultures that we have issues resting.

Which then results in a lot of shame, situational depression because goals aren’t “being met”.

It’s time to stop. Hustling isn’t how you get your rest. You can’t productive your way to rest.

It isn’t how you get your birth right. It isn’t how you get liberated.

Being mentally, emotionally, and physically well is how you do it.

Plus who says you can’t have the life you want and also be financially safe? It’s all about how you look at it.

Do you need help figuring out how to build the business, career, and life you want without falling prey to burnout & constant productivity at the expense of poor mental, emotional , and physical health?

Then my Voxer & 1:1 coaching is for you.

During our time together, we’ll be assessing your life, your thoughts, your behaviors and how they’re contributing to you believing Hustling is the only way to success. You can achieve your goals and take care of yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically.

The best part of unlearning this toxic frame of mind is understanding you can have it all & be at peace.

If you’re ready to make mentally & emotionally healthy decisions in your life, your business, or your careerWant to find out more information? learn more by submitting interest for a sales call at the link in my bio.

I’M GOING FOR IT

I’ve been passionate about mental health & business for a while.

If you’ve been around you know I have a Masters Degree in Social Work ( read the slides for more background info)

I no longer want to deny the impact and support I make with my clients when I support them in improving their mental & emotional well-being while living their life & running their business.

So I’m trying something new.

I’m stepping away from tech ( read the slides for why) & leaning into mental health & business coaching.

✌🏾 1:1 coaching

✌🏾a community space

✌🏾a Merch from store

is how I’ll be supporting you towards the goal of:

➡️unsubscribing from hustle culture & understanding what it means to run a business with balance.

➡️be inclusive & understand how your place in society & the environment you live in impacts your mental & emotional well-being.

➡️donating to mental health causes & providing the best resources to get clinical support if needed

Most importantly empowering you to live a life with no fear or boundaries.

No people pleasing. No perfectionism.

Let’s build a life & business on your terms.

Want to find out more information?

Check the link in my bio to book a call with me 😎

Listen I know when you’re first getting started in anything you sometimes don’t have money to invest.

When I first started my business I didn’t have a job or any money in my bank account. I literally worked my ass off to figure out everything.

But one thing I never did was ask or expect anyone to do anything for me for free.

I asked coaches to give me extended payment plans but they always got paid. I negotiated terms when I needed services to fit my budget better even if that meant I’d do half the work, but they never worked for me for free.

So why is it that people have constantly expected me to do free work?

➡️People coming in my DM’s demanding answers to stuff my clients pay for.

➡️People getting mad and telling me I should be ashamed for charging for that.

➡️People asking me a s**t ton of questions only to invest in my white counterparts.

You could say it’s been a lack of boundaries on my part ( and I’d agree to a certain extent) but it’s also people’s entitlement and expectations.

I think content creation has made people think that something, everything should always be given away for free. Because content is mass produced.

However, that doesn’t mean you need to expect business owners to work for free.

I’ve developed my knowledge and skills. I’ve invested in developing my programs and curriculum from experts.

I spend hours researching and reading up on tech, business operations, and business trends to put into my content.

I’ve written and posted close to 1000 pieces of content in the past 6 months.

I literally work my ass to provide value.

Don’t insult me by asking me to work for free.

Don’t insult me by getting offended because I am asking to be paid for my labor.

I have a family and bills to pay just like you do.

I have a life to live just like you do.

Monitor your expectations and check yourself if you’re demanding stuff from people you wouldn’t want anyone to do for you.

Even if you’re being nice. It’s disrespectful to all the hard work I put in.

Pay Black and Brown Business Owners for their skills and knowledge period.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month

If you’ve been following me for awhile you know that I have a Masters in Social Work. I spent 6 years studying mental health.

I spent 3 years interning and working with the most vulnerable populations.

So it will always be an important part of my life and coaching.

Not only that I struggle with mental health issues every day myself.

✅ I have undiagnosed anxiety disorder ( but I definitely meet the criteria). I deal with anxiety every single day. There’s not much my anxiety doesn’t impact now. I’m learning how to live with it.

✅ I have an eating disorder. I’ve been struggling with emotional and binge eating since I was a kid. It was manageable until I graduated with my Masters. I started therapy last year.

✅I’ve dealt with major loss ( My dad & My Sister) and I’m dealing with grief right now.

Why am I saying this? Because I want to normalize Mental Illness.

It doesn’t always look like staying in bed all day or some versions of Schizophrenia.

It’s people walking around you every day with internal battles you cannot see.

Mental Health isn’t a weakness. It’s a sign of living and for some people it’s apart of who they are.

I want to encourage you to be more accepting of yourself if you struggle with it. Talk about it so we can make it normal. Get help and tell people you’re getting help.

My educational trainings & resources have changed LIVES.

As a multi-passionate, I tend to struggle with staying focused.

When you’re interested in multiple things and you’re a creative there’s always an idea swirling around in your head that you could do.

I’ve been straddling the world of service provider and educator/trainer/mentor for over a year now.

I thought it was because I wanted to do both. For awhile I did.

But I’ve grown to love teaching. If you ask any of my past or current clients they’ll tell you I try to make everything an educational moment lol.

After seeing a lot of success with being a Trainer last year, I became scared to fully lean into it.

I kept seeing people say:

✅ they hate coaches

✅they didn’t see the point in having someone teach anything because YouTube

✅People who charge for courses and programs are scam artists who are greedy & what’s wrong with society ( saw that one last week)

So I went back to my safe zone of providing services & stopped promoting my courses.

But I haven’t been happy because I LOVE TEACHING & I’m good at it!

I’m literally writing this post to say, I finally stopped the mindset drama and decided to stake my claim.

I’m Ericka, Your Techxtra Coach. Passionate business educator. Friendly & Fierce Mentor that has been helping VA’s and OBM’s gain specialty Tech & Operations skills for 1.5 years now.

I’ve helped them do this:

➡️without learning to code

➡️picking their dream clients

➡️learning 1 tool

➡️becoming a high level strategist

And my educational trainings and resources have changed lives.

That feels amazing to say because it’s true.

So I’m betting on myself. I’m going all in.

I’m creating an educational one stop shop & community for you.

➡️Courses & Masterclasses

➡️Templates & Guides

➡️Community & Merch

It’s been a dream I’ve been scared to dive into fully but it’s just bubbling underneath the surface to do & it’s needed.

Glad to finally have it out in the universe so I can embody it & can’t wait to bring it to life Fully!

Tell me what you’d like to see created from me.

How to peacefully navigate a slow period of business 📉

Q4 & Q1 were slow periods of business for me.

I experienced a 50% drop in my income. The main reason being: Major Life Stressors.

My mom & my mother in law both experience major health crises at the same time.

Because of this my daily attention shifted & business needed to as well.

I realized quickly after looking at my numbers I needed to adjust my expectations and my strategy in order to come out on top of this by the end of this year.

And I wanted to do it peacefully.

So here’s the real strategy behind navigating a slow period of business peacefully ☮️

➡️KNOW YOUR NUMBERS

Knowing your sales, profit, expenses allows you to make GROUNDED decisions.

A 🔑 skill as a CEO is knowing your sales, profit, and expenses ( if you don’t know anything else AT LEAST know those so you can forecast).

➡️ If you notice a down trend , get curious about why so you can set new goals.

For me, it allowed me to see that I need time freedom in my life for the foreseeable future. My course is the 🔑 to doing that.

I also realized that the slow period was allowing me the freedom to process what was happening in my life.

➡️ Create a Strategic Plan

Again with my goal to scale my course enrollments the rest of the year, I had to figure out the way I would achieve that because it would impact my long term strategy.

So, I enrolled in a program that specifically focuses on helping people increase their course and membership growth.

Now that I knew how I’d grow my course, I had to figure out how to increase my income in the meantime to make sure I could cover my expenses during the initial ramp up period.

➡️ Follow the plan peacefully

I used my recruiting knowledge (Boolean Search & ATS optimization) to boost my profile.

Upwork sells for me which eliminates me having to promote offers (Time freedom).

This allowed me to book longer term projects to bring my business income back up to baseline.

I teach my 1:1 coaching clients how to navigate periods of slowness all the time.

Click the link in my bio to check out my offers.

Be open to the ways clients & money can come to you

I told myself in December that I was going to be open to how clients find me to work with.

I was going to start exposing myself to different audiences (LinkedIn & Tik Tok)

I was going to not put so much pressure on myself to have everything figured out.

This has lead to amazing things in the past 45 days.

✅ I realized that there was a gap in the market for service providers when it came to how they found clients & created a new Done For You offer (Optimize Your UpWork).

This has lead to me finding a new & fun way to support service providers in building their businesses. I’ve helped my clients land long term client & project work they maybe wouldn’t have if I didn’t present the offer.

Sometimes your original way isn’t the way your clients will see transformation

✅ Being open to taking that call

I got a message on LinkedIn last week about a Consulting job with another firm. At first, I was like is this real? Can this possibly be happening to me?

& then I said what the heck do you have to lose? The answer was an opportunity. So I message the person back on Saturday, he asked to book a call with me first thing & I’m sending my proposal over today.

Sometimes you just have to be open to letting good things happen to you.

✅ Understanding that I don’t have to do 1:many to grow.

Right now doing a group coaching program is just not fitting into what my personal life needs.

My family is going through a lot so I cannot show up well like I know I would need to do group coaching.

My coach reminded me today that I can build my business to take care of my needs in my personal life & still be creative in how I serve.

For me right now, that is through 1:1 coaching & consulting.

Take care of you first & build your business around it. If you do it the other way, you’ll more than likely shut down & then you’ll have to do something else anyway.

Want more details on 1:1 coaching & consulting? Check out my offers on the last 2 slides!

A CONSULTANT IS NOT A COACH

One of the things I absolutely dislike about the online space is that anyone can get on a soapbox & spread misinformation.

This one is one I’ve see going around for a few months & it’s just plain wrong.

I mean you can literally google the definitions 😂

Coaching & Consulting have very different skillsets.

Coaching is more about building awareness & supporting people to help them achieve their goals. Coaching isn’t about telling you what to do. It’s helping you realize why what you’re doing may not be working & help you find the answers to think of a better way.

While Consulting is high level strategy.

This person is usually a high level expert in an area.

Aka they live, sleep, eat, & breathe in Knowledge in this space.

They help to diagnose, strategize, & advise their clients to approach their problems.

Now if you’re a service provider you can see how if a coach tells you consulting is coaching that may turn you off from doing it.

Well it’s not!

Consulting is a very lucrative way for you provide high level strategic support to businesses in your area of expertise.

& I hate that people are trying to turn you off from because their uneducated about what consulting actually is.

I’ll be chatting more in depth about the skills required to be a consultant in my masterclass with on February 22.

Because not everyone has it in them to be a consultant. It’s a different approach than Done for you.

Do you have questions about consulting? Drop them below ⬇️

You run a company so make decisions from the beginning line you do

The longer I’m in the online space the more I see people making things harder for themselves all because they want nothing to be like corporate businesses.

But not everything corporate businesses do is bad.

For example, when startups create their businesses they know from jump they have to create a business plan that clearly explains their business model.

Why? Because they will have to be able to pitch investors on the long term vision.

They’re not just an individual they are a company with a plan to stick around longer than 5 minutes.

I want to encourage you to see the value of picking a business model.

To see the value of being more than just the service you provide.

You’re building a company.

“Ericka, I’m terrified at the thought of building an agency but deep down I know I want to.”

This statement from one of my clients in my community has kept me up for weeks thinking through how to change this thought amongst service providers.

Somewhere along the lines it got miscommunicated that service providers were meant to stay small.

That you were meant to only be the person helping support others dreams & that in order to do so well it meant having to give up yours.

Well I want to tell you that this is the year we say F**K THAT.

Service Providers (Strategists, Consultants, Tech Integrators, Operations Assistants & Specialist, Designers, the builders) we do a lot for our clients to make their dreams come true.

We stay up at night thinking of how to solve complex problems. We connect the dots that are missing from their vision. We do the work so that they look good when they step in public.

& for what? Low pay? Lack of boundaries? Self doubt? Struggling to grow our own companies?

I say no more.

👸🏾You deserve to demand market value pricing (notice I didn’t say your worth because you’re priceless baby) & not a penny less.

👸🏾You deserve to create an offer that truly shows your expertise off because that’s what you spend all your time developing anyway.

👸🏾You deserve to market & sell your services like the rockstar you are. To stop doubting your greatness & show up with confidence telling your ideal clients exactly how their lives will be better with you.

👸🏾You deserve to have a business that doesn’t drain you. That supports you. That SERVES you.

You can’t do that if you’re playing small.

I have an amazing & unique offer coming that will help you:

✅Build your DREAM business

✅SERVE your clients at 100% excellence

✅GROW your profits, your mind, and your team

You ready? Keep your eyes on my page

P/S I just dropped the program name in this post I’ll send a Starbucks card to the first person that DM’s me with the correct guess!

YOU WANT THE TRUTH?

The truth is, sometimes the reason you fail is because of you.

Because you aren’t ready to change.

Because you haven’t done the work to heal your trauma.

Because you won’t take responsibility of your actions, your behaviors, and poor decisions you make.

There will always be the potential for someone to scam you, but most likely that’s not the case.

When making investment decisions do these 3 things:

1️⃣Evaluate if you actually need this

Most of you don’t actually take the time to figure out if this is something you need now or in the future.

If you’ve been having the same issue trip you up for months, that’s a good sign you need to work on it now.

If it’s something you won’t need until 2 years from now, put it off.

2️⃣ Are you taking on someone else’s version of success?

Because consumption is at all time high, it’s easy to be unconsciously influenced by what we see, read, and hear.

Ask yourself if it’s what you really want or is there some part of you triggered by what they got?

You may need to work on the trigger vs investing in that person’s version of success.

3️⃣ Take responsibility for your decision no matter the outcome.

I’ve made bad investment decisions & you want to know how I didn’t end up bitter & saying I’ll never once again?

Because I was empowered by the fact that at the time that version of me thought that was the best decision for me.

I learn a lesson from it and then I move on.

I know it’s uncomfortable to face these realities sometimes but it’s necessary.

This message is for anyone who calls themselves a coach.

If you hold space for people in anyway whether it is through the lens of:

➡️Business

➡️Fitness

➡️ Life

Whatever you coach on…

Respect and honor the role that you have in people’s life.

Understand that someone took a chance by putting their trust in you to support them.

To guide them on their journey.

If you cannot handle that with dignity, care, and empathy, THEN DON’T BE A COACH.

If you cannot separate your personal feelings from your coaching relationship, THEN DONT BE A COACH.

One of the best things I learned when being trained as a therapist was that my clients decisions & life aren’t about me.

It ain’t personal.

& if you’re placing all of your s**t above their well-being then you’re doing it wrong.

& I don’t mean that you’re letting people run over you or are not setting boundaries.

What I mean is,

If what you’re selling or recommending them to do is:

✅causing them harm in any way ( mental, emotional, financial, health) then it’s not what’s best for them.

Don’t abuse your position of power ( and yes being a coach does put you in a position of authority) because you’re trying to make a sale.

Don’t abuse your position of power for the sake of a transformation.

Don’t gaslight your clients when they give you feedback because you can’t emotionally handle that your actions may have caused harm.

It’s not about you Fam.

Do better!

This is why people are so weary of coaches because people are not respecting the importance of the role.

No matter what lens being a coach is a major responsibility & if you can’t do it in a way that honors people’s:

✅mental & emotional
✅physical
✅financial

& overall well being?

Then you have 2 options:

1️⃣ GET MORE TRAINING ( trauma & emotional IQ)

2️⃣Find a different business model

💚