We recently connected with Kayla MacArthur and have shared our conversation below.

Kayla, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

When it comes to business, I value service first, profit second.

It is not unusual for me to meet with a potential client several times before they commit to working together. This might look like getting to know each other over a virtual coffee, offering them a complimentary coaching session to experience how I work, or supporting them to move past an obstacle that stands in the way of them investing into one of my programs. I value creating real relationships where heart and generosity are centered.

Kayla, 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?

For the past seven years, I’ve supported my clients to step off the traditional path and forge their own. Whether they are thinking about starting a business or they already have a business, but it’s not yet life-giving or supporting the lifestyle they desire, I help them create sustainable success by building resilience in the face of the emotional ups and downs that come with being an entrepreneur.

I work with these women because I am one of them.

Back in 2013, I had what I call my “quarter-life crisis.” After graduating with my bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Regis College, I landed a job as a residential counselor, serving young adults with severe mental illness. My hope was to gain experience in the field before returning to school to become a therapist. After all, this was the message I received from my family and society about how life should go: First, you get an education; then, you pick a career; then, you get married, buy a house and have kids; and then, you live happily ever after.

The only problem was, four years into my career, I was extremely burnt out and unhappy. I didn’t want to go back to school, let alone become a therapist. I had no clue what I wanted to do and when I looked to my peers, it seemed like they had life figured out.

Instead of forcing myself to fit into a box, I chose to do something radical–I chose to do something I always said I wanted to do, but always had an excuse not to do: I took a leave of absence from my job, packed up my best friend’s Rav 4, and together, we took off on a two month road trip across the United States.

While I discovered so many things about myself on this trip, the most potent lesson I learned was about the power I had to create my own reality. I mean, if I could make this trip happen, what else could I do? It was invigorating to wake up every day and get choose how I wanted to spend my time. I still remember driving around a bend in Oregon, with the sun glinting off the ocean to my right and goosebumps prickling up my arms: I don’t know what it was about that moment, but I felt an ALIVENESS I had never felt before and I vowed to find a way to bring this sense of freedom into my career.

When I returned home, I became obsessed with designing the life I wanted. I explored many potential career options, including becoming a tour guide, working at a National Park, and teaching English abroad. When I really thought about it though, I realized that none of these options would allow me to build something that I could come home to. So, instead of finding a new job, I decided to create something I could build for the rest of my life: I got certified as a coach and I opened a business.

Now, fast forward to nine years later, and I am living the dream I got a glimpse of on my road trip. I get to wake up every day and decide how I want to spend my time. I get to work with life-giving clients who I adore and who trust me to support them in building their own dreams. I live in a small town called Sayulita on Mexico’s west coast with my partner and our cat, Creature. I’m learning Spanish, soaking up the sunshine, and immersing myself in the vibrancy of Mexican culture. While I’m still human and have challenges just like anyone else, the foundation I have built for my life is something that I am so proud of and I am eternally grateful for the courage I drummed up to break out of the box, despite not knowing how it would turn out.

In my early years of entrepreneurship, the journey was more rough and choppy than I believe it had to be. I had no one I could turn to who had walked the path I was going down and it was a lonely place to be. The kind of coaching I currently offer IS the support I was looking for before I went full-time in my business. It is my heart’s greatest joy to be of service to the rebels, the square pegs, and the unicorns. I believe that when we do work we love and live a life that is fully aligned with who we are {not what someone else wants for us}, we make the world a better and more beautiful place. And the world could use more of that.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

When I first started my business, I actually labeled myself as a Health & Wellness Coach. After receiving my certification, I officially opened my business in April of 2015 and right off the bat, I had a lot of success. I hosted a seven day fitness challenge, with over 250 people from my social media following signing up. After the challenge, three of those individuals chose to become private clients and I was over-the-moon, thinking I was on my way to creating a sustainable business.

Little did I know, that was all that happened in the first six months. I had big initial success, but I couldn’t duplicate it or maintain it, so after a lengthy period of throwing spaghetti against the wall, I pulled back to take a break and re-evaluate. During my period of reevaluation, something intriguing happened. I started to manifest things like crazy! I called in $4K in unexpected cash, I won a free spot in a $5K coaching program, and I landed a scholarship opportunity to go to Bali with other business owners who were much more seasoned and successful than I was.

Since I was sharing these manifestations on social media, people from my audience started to reach out, asking me how I was making these things happen. At their requests, I put together an e-book and a workshop outlining my unique manifestation process. The workshop took off and over the course of nine months, 60+ people attended, both in-person and online.

Due to the success of the workshop, people became curious about working with me and at the end of 2016, I signed six 1:1 clients in a row into my new programs at my new rates. As I dove into my work with these clients, I noticed that the majority of them were creating results that they had previously deemed challenging. For example, two months into working together, one of my clients hit a big rank in her network marketing company which she had previously been trying to achieve for two years. Another one of my clients manifested a music gig in another country. And another one of my clients started traveling to different destinations around the world, allowing her to see the ocean for the first time in her life. It was so surreal to watch their successes unfold as I was beginning to come into my own.

While business continued to flow in my direction, I still wasn’t making enough money to go full-time. It wasn’t until I hired my first high-level coach in 2018 that things really started to heat up. It took me a year and a half to find the courage to invest into her services, but when I finally felt like I could trust myself to make the payments, I put down my deposit and geared up for big transformation.

During our work together, she provided the crucial mentorship that I needed to take my business to the next level. I also became bolder than ever. I got involved with my local networking community and started to become known to other business owners in the area. I started attending and speaking at events. I launched my first course. And I found the courage to overcome my fear of inviting people to experience my coaching. At the start of 2019, I had built my business to a place where it was supporting all of my monthly expenses, yet I wasn’t quite ready to go full-time.

The same month I started my business, I also started a part-time job working for an elderly woman. Over the years, Helen watched me experiment and grow. She supported me through all of it. I took care of her, brought her to all of her appointments, cooked and cleaned for her, accompanied her on all of her errands. We became so close that I thought of her as my grandmother. Even though my business was sustaining me, I couldn’t bear to leave her. I felt like it was my duty to usher her through these last few years of her life.

In October of 2019, Helen passed away suddenly from her battle with COPD. It was such a bittersweet moment because while I was so overcome with grief for this woman I had come to love, I also knew that her passing was a sign that it was time for me to become a full-time entrepreneur. I didn’t have another part-time job lined up and I didn’t look for one either; I didn’t need one. It was time to go out into the world and live the life I was always meant to live; the life that Helen wanted for me. While it was uncomfortable to lose the steady income that she provided, I decided to take the leap and here I am, three years later, still full-time in my business.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Hands down, building relationships.

In my opinion, taking the time to build genuine relationships with potential customers is a lost art. These days, it’s all about social media marketing, email funnels, and digital ads. While there’s nothing wrong with these strategies and they work for a variety of businesses, coaching is inherently intimate. As a coach, you are working closely with your clients on aspects of their lives that are deeply personal to them, so why not match your marketing strategy to reflect that experience?

What works for me in terms of building relationships is focusing on creating connection and being of service. This looks like joining networking groups, attending events, and joining communities that center around a common interest I share with my clients. From there, it looks like inviting people in these spaces to connect individually to get curious about who they are, what they’re up to, and how I can leverage my network to support them. It’s also looked like following up, whether that’s staying connected on social media or checking in every once in a while. At certain times throughout the year, I run a community serve special, offering complimentary sessions to my audience and I always find that the people I’ve been building relationships with sign up. Many of these people also become paying clients and if they don’t, it’s not unusual for them to send a referral my way.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kaylamacarthur.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kaylamacarthur