We recently connected with Cydnee DeToy and have shared our conversation below.

Cydnee, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

I started my coaching business in 2019 as a very casual side hustle. I told my two best friends that I was “open for business” and they each referred me two clients from their companies. Each of these clients referred me to another colleague or friend, and somehow these first introductions snowballed into almost four years of enough referrals to sustain my side hustle.

Fast forward to 2023 and I decided to go full-time with my business. I didn’t have a clear marketing plan and the thought of promoting my services online made me cringe. I quit my full-time job, wrote an earnest LinkedIn post describing my passion for this work and then left for Spain for a month-long sabbatical and thought “oh, I’ll figure out marketing when I get back.”

Lo and behold, the LinkedIn post reached almost 20k people and several reached out inquiring about my services. I’ll never forget waking up in a monastery in rural Spain and opening my email to see the first three inquiries. I let out a deep sigh of relief feeling “this can work,” shot my family text a note of celebration and then frantically set up a calendar link and intake process to connect with each woman.

All three of the women enrolled, giving me my first non-referral revenue in my first month of business. Even sweeter than their bet on my work, was the fact that they responded so quickly to my authentic and unpolished LinkedIn post. Turns out I didn’t need a perfect marketing funnel, I just needed my passion.

Cydnee, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As an MBA and consultant, I got into coaching on a whim. After a few left turns in my career which left me feeling burnt out and confused, I started working with a career coach to figure out what I wanted to do next. During our sessions, I heard an unexpected ping of “these are the exact conversations I want to have every day” and a strong desire to get to support clients in the same way my coach did.

I was on the fast-track to executive leadership and had invested so much energy in getting to that level in my career. I thought, “there’s no way I’m throwing this all away to do something you don’t even need an MBA for.” However, I couldn’t ignore the nudge and signed up for coach training the following year thinking I would integrate it into my full-time role.

I coached clients as a side-hustle for years as I continued to advance professionally, and got that c-suite promotion. Fast forward to 2023 and after a few (tiring!) years leading my company through the pandemic, I decided I was finally ready to coach full-time.

I now lead Cydnee DeToy Coaching, a career coaching and speaking company for ambitious millennial women. I help women in their 30s and early 40s who feel lost, unaligned, burnt out or under-utilized professionally figure out what they really want to do and build the plan and confidence to make it happen.

About 80% of my clients have their MBAs and are 3 – 10 years post-business school, so I can relate deeply to my clients and have an unique first-hand understanding of what they’re wrestling with and how to successfully move through it. I pair this insight with a rigorous framework and approach honed through coaching >100 women to date.

Most career coaching can be tactical – focused on networking strategy or resume updates – and while I do that with my clients, our work together is so much deeper. As my clients are figuring out what they want to do next, we delve into their values, strengths and self-belief. By the end of our work together, not only do they know what they want to do next and have the tools to make it happen, they are stronger, more self-aware and more confident.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

When my clients are looking for coaching support, they want to invest in they same way they have at every other point in their education and career – in the best expert guidance available.

Having an MBA from NYU Stern, a top-10 business school, and strong professional track-record (promoted 3x in 5 years to the c-suite), along with my coach training, gives potential clients confidence that I have the training, rigor and lived experience to help them be successful.

As my business has grown, those credentials have been strengthened by the endorsement of >100 women from top business schools and professional backgrounds.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

In the past year, my newsletter and LinkedIn have been the best source of business for new clients. Having built my business on referrals, investing in new connections on LinkedIn and inviting them to join my newsletter was critical to being able to expand my client base.

I’m constantly connecting with new people on LinkedIn and try to share my and my clients’ experiences candidly and authentically so they get a sense of what is possible with coaching.

I feel honored every time a potential new client reaches out and says “hey, can we connect? everything you write really resonates.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cydneedetoycoaching.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cydnee-detoy/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CydneeDeToyCoaching

Image Credits

Meg Heriot Photography