We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Monica Marie Jones. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Monica Marie below.
Monica Marie , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
Coaching generally consists of a conversation between the coach and the client guided by the client’s objective for the session and powerful questions asked by the coach. The coach actively listens to the client and moves them toward an action step or goal based on what they’ve shared by the end of the session. While I still use this very effective method, I also infuse activities that meet the various learning styles and adult learning needs of my clients. I created this unique approach by infusing my previous experience as an educator, social worker, performing artist, and facilitator.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
If I know nothing else, I know that stuff can stick to you.
When I say stuff, I am talking about the events in life that break you. The experiences that try to define you. The feelings like fear and self-doubt that put the breaks on your success and your belief about what is possible for your future.
Let me tell you what I mean.
I grew up with the odds stacked against me. Constant chaos became my daily reality, and when you’re always focused on surviving, it’s really challenging to thrive.
My poverty mindset followed me from childhood all the way to my twenties. My money was a mess. My mental health was a mess. I was unhappy and I didn’t know what to do.
But, on the surface, I was smiling, successful and doing just fine.
The ironic part is that, in my life and my work, I was helping people to fix their lives and careers every day. Helping them to work through their own messes. Getting them unstuck. Walking them right up to almost immediate shifts in their beliefs and mindsets about themselves, their abilities, their relationships, health, and money. And was doing none of that for myself.
My personal struggles with chronic chaos in my life led me to my path of personal growth and deep transformation on all levels— physically, mentally and financially. My soul opened up, and I started to peel back my layers of my emotional stuff and go deep within seeking answers and uncovering my own personal truth and power. The teacher became the student.
What I found was that it didn’t matter how many degrees I got, in my mind, I was still a heartbroken little girl who never felt like she was or would be enough. A broken woman who would only, at best, have just enough. That stuff from my past had defined my present, and I was stuck in that place far too long.
The process that I used to shift my mindset and finally live the passionate, fulfilling life I desired has become the foundation of my work.
It all starts with the mind. What you believe about yourself is. Getting rid of limiting, disempowering beliefs allow us to live.
Our stuff turns into stuck. Hard childhoods, broken hearts, broken relationships stick with you when you don’t deal with it and heal from it.
Everything is connected. When you are out of balance in one area of your life, the rest will follow. Letting go of work you don’t enjoy, weight or debt that doesn’t belong to you anymore or love that doesn’t love you back will free up so much space for what you want and need.
Trust your truth. If you feel you want more, you do. If you feel you need more, you do. You have an internal compass to guide you, if you let it.
I think of myself as soul journey guide that supports my clients on their unique paths to designing and ultimately living lives that they love. I provide tools and processes that help them uncover or rediscover everything that they need that already lives inside of them.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
My early career in education and social work led me to begin a consulting company where I trained adults who work with youth in best practices for high quality engagement and skill growth. After doing that for many years and honing my facilitation skills, participants would come up to me after my workshops to ask for advice or mentorship. Around the same time a friend asked, “Have you ever thought about being a life coach?” I hadn’t but her question and my natural tendency to support people in their personal and professional growth got me thinking. I decided to sign up for a coaching certification program. A part of the program called for us to practice coaching actual clients. I asked five of the women who came to me for advice if they would allow me to coach them individually and as a group for six months to practice my skills and develop my coaching approach. The transformations and breakthroughs that these clients experienced was mind blowing! Not only was I able to use their stories and testimonials to grow my clientele, but the way that they were showing up in the world prompted people who knew them to ask what they had done to make such huge and positive changes in their lives. Their answer was that they had participated in my coaching program. So to clarify, I look at this as a combination of two strategies:
1. When I facilitated trainings across the nation, I continued to show up authentically. I provided memorable and powerful experiences for my audiences not only by presenting helpful strategies and tools for them to use, but I also infused my education, social work, and performing arts skills into the way that I presented the content. These people never forgot how I made them feel, and when I started my coaching business, many of them were my first clients. So, the more that people experience my approach, the more likely they are to sign up for my offerings, or refer me when others are looking for a coach.
2. Even though I did it pro bono, using that initial group of women to test my approach was the best investment of time that I made to grow my business. It helped me to polish my products and services, and they continue to flourish and spread the word which has created amazing momentum for the growth of my business and clientele.
How did you build your audience on social media?
As my business grew I decided to hire an assistant. One of the first things she said when we began working together was, “You need a lead generator.” She helped me to take my existing content and use it to create my 31-day Master Your Mindset and Connect with Your Soul journal writing experience. She set up an automated program in my email list system where subscribers would receive an email every day for 31 days that included a writing prompt guided by a micro motivational message, a powerful question, and an affirmation. She also created a fillable PDF workbook that could be downloaded or printed out for those who wanted to work at their own pace, or be able to have access to the entire program all at once. This organically grew my mailing list and social media presence, especially when people began sharing it because they went through it and saw the value in participating in it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.monicamariejones.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monicamariejones
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/monicamariejones
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamariejones/
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/monicamjones
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/monicamariejones
Image Credits
Jeremy Cranford