We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Seneca Williams. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Seneca below.

Hi Seneca, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

I had a really hard choice to make, stay stuck doing work that isn’t fulfilling or conquer my fears of growing a mental health movement for entrepreneurs. We all have hard career choices, choose your hard.

Maybe you can relate. I dreamt of being able to have a career that I truly enjoyed doing every week and Mondays felt good. I would be able to earn what I want, live where I want, take care of my family, feel happy, and FREE!

I chose to do this by starting an online therapy and coaching practice that supports careerpreneurs and entrepreneurs with service-based businesses.

Key Challenges:

1. I only knew how to be a good therapist and coach, not a good business owner.
2. I didn’t have a business investor or savings, so I had to bootstrap.
3. I had severe business anxiety, I feared social media, promoting, and selling.
4. I was doing EVERYTHING by myself, I didn’t have any help to get things done.
5. I winged it with free content, watching free webinars, downloading free workbooks, and binging YouTube.

In 2015, I had recently been laid off from a “good job”, which I thought was secure. This was my motivation, to take control of my own career and income potential. I wanted to be a good provider and example for my daughter.

I took a leap of faith and registered my online business, after abruptly being laid off. How hard could it be to grow an online business? Boy, was I wrong?

Honestly, I was so anxious, nervous, and scared all the time, that I often considered quitting, because that first year I made no money. NONE.

Challenges Conquered:

1. Business coaches: I invested in different business coaches for guidance in selling, marketing, social media, and speaking.

2. Bootstrapping: I used my business credit card. I reinvested any money I made, back into the business. I searched for “beta” coaching programs because that was the lowest price they would ever be. I purchased early bird tickets and jumped on any sales, discounts, or bonuses.

3. Therapy: Worked on my past emotional traumas and learn to manage my anxiety and depression which would sabotage my mindset. This helps to be better at running a business and better for my clients.

4. Freelancers: Hired from Fiverr, Upwork, Instagram, and my connections to do things I wasn’t skilled at like graphic design, website, automation, and email list.

5. Business development: I continue to join business communities, and coaching groups, and attend business conferences and retreats, winging it and going it alone doesn’t work.

If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t have wasted time winning it with free content or doing everything by myself. I really wasted months, trying to build my own website, when it could’ve been done in a week. I would have invested in coaches, business development, and hiring freelancers right from the start.

Over time, I began building my business confidence, by gradually stepping outside of my comfort zone. I tried new things, asked for help, and challenged my doubt.

Networking helped me to develop meaningful business relationships. I then built online exposure by creating content that highlighted my niche, written and video, which led to getting invited to do Livestreams and Podcasts.

This led to an opportunity to start the “Career Therapy Show with Seneca Williams”. This was was a national public access television show and radio show that ran in 2018, the replays are still on YouTube. Exposure is the key to getting more client leads. Building a business is about how many people know about your services.

The advice I give to my business clients and aspiring entrepreneurs, is to invest in mindset support early, often, and fast.

Many new entrepreneurs feel held back by their insecurities and all the learning curves. They also try to do everything by themselves and end up overwhelmed and burned out, leaving them little time to develop their expertise, work with clients and create valuable content. This can be a huge blow to their confidence and create “business anxiety”. Although business anxiety isn’t a clinical diagnosis, it’s an emotional response, to the entrepreneur roller coaster, that negatively impacts the way you think, feel and act in business.

You need to develop your CEO mindset, to run your business like one. A good start is hiring freelancers, to help you with various tasks that are not in your expertise, like a consultant whose done it before, an assistant for administrative tasks, a graphic designer, marketing, and social media professional.

It may sound expensive, but there are interns and freelancers who would love the opportunity to get experience with a start-up. There are international freelancers as low as $5 per hour. You can also use business credit cards, take out business loans and apply for business grants to fund your business development.

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 back background and context?

My favorite quote of all time is, “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” Dr. Maya Angelou

In every aspect of my life, I strive for success, but I didn’t always feel successful.

2008 was a major turning point in my life. My car flipped over on the highway, and surviving this, made me seriously reevaluate my entire life. I always thought I wanted to be an attorney. But when I was laid off from a major law firm, due to the recession, law no longer excited me. I didn’t want to return to corporate. I was a single mother of a 2-year-old and I had to figure out a new way to make a living. I made a career change from “law” to “psychology”.

Pursuing mental health was a calling, I tried to avoid. I learned that you cannot mute, block or delete your calling. I took my first psychology course in high school and loved it!

In undergrad, I took psychology courses for fun, until I gained enough credits to declare it my major (with political science as a minor). Despite my love of psychology, right after undergrad, I got a paralegal certificate and started working in law firms and corporate environments.

Changing careers from law to psychology was hard, especially in a recession, I had to work my way up. First I volunteered, then I got an entry-level counseling job. In 2010, I began a Master’s Degree in Mental Health Counseling. After graduating in 2012, I worked with various populations, until I realized my passion for career counseling and business.

In 2015, I started Seneca Williams Therapy as an online practice for professionals and entrepreneurs with high-functioning anxiety and depression. High-functioning professionals appear fine to others. They can get their work done, but on the inside, they are struggling to cope with stress, past trauma, anxiety, and depression. I help them with coping skills to improve their mental health and quality of life.

The idea for The Conquer Network, came in 2019, after losing a high school friend by suicide in 2019. She was a single mom, that worked 9-5 and ran a business on the side. Maybe she would be here if she had support with managing all of this.
Entrepreneurs need a safe space to build their business, that doesn’t promote unhealthy behaviors like hustling 24/7, not sleeping, working every single day, and celebrating being busy and burnt out.

I thought what if there was someplace to be able to talk about life and business without judgment. Some place to learn how to work smarter not harder. Some place that celebrates life and business harmony, however, looks for your life. Some place that encourages ethical business. A place where you can find emotional support as an entrepreneur.

Hustle Culture is canceled in The Conquer Network. I am most proud of being part of the anti-hustle movement. Entrepreneurship shouldn’t threaten our sanity, our wellness or quality relationships with our family and friends. All of this eventually impacts entrepreneurs’ mental health, sometimes with detrimental consequences.

In 2022, Cheslie Kryst, former MISS USA, lawyer, and host on the EXTRA television show, tragically took her life, with her last social media post reading “May this day bring you rest and peace.” Although this was shocking, many entrepreneurs are silently suffering.

“72% of entrepreneurs are directly or indirectly affected by mental health issues compared to just 48% of non-entrepreneurs. That’s according to a study by the National Institute of Mental Health.” Source: Forbes

Can we have a successful business and still maintain our mental wellness?

Absolutely. The Conquer Network is offering an alternative to the traditional business culture, by building mental wealth for business. The Conquer Network is designed to be an emotionally safe space to build your service-based business.

The Conquer Network has a free space where any entrepreneur can join, whether they are stuck in start-up or stalled in scaling. The content, coaching, and programs focus on breaking thorough business anxiety and beating business burnout while building an online service-based business.

Clients can join paid coaching programs such as the Business Anxiety Breakthrough Program where they learn to package, promote and sell their services with confidence. They learn how to work through sales anxiety, social media anxiety, and networking anxiety while maintaining mental and physical wellness.

There is also an opportunity to work with me one on one, in the PAUSE Personal Coaching Program, because sometimes you need to practice a pause to reassess your life and business. As one client said, she needed to “slow down to speed up.” We come up with a self-care plan and productivity plan that helps you prevent getting overwhelmed and burned out, so you can gradually grow your business.

I’m a mental health advocate, so every coaching program is designed with building mental wealth and wellness in mind. Mental health should be a priority while running your business.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Your business won’t grow in a comfort zone. I never imagined I’d be doing live streams on social media, this led to speaking on stage, on panels, at conferences, retreats, doing workshops at corporations, and even a keynote at a university. Getting paid to speak is another income stream, in addition to therapy and coaching. Speaking has helped me to get clients and referrals. These are all way outside of my comfort zone.

Every day, you should do something that grows you and stretches you in business. Relying on your credentials, your licenses and degrees is not enough to grow an online business.

I encourage any entrepreneur to assess, their comfort zone. If you’re doing exactly the same thing you were doing last year, 6 months ago or even 3 months ago, it’s time to stretch and grow. Reading books to develop a growth mindset.

Here’s a short list I often refer my clients to read.

1. Atomic Habits, James Clear
2. Failing Forward, John Maxwell
3. Self-Care Prescription, Robyn Gobin PhD
4. Successful Women Think Differently: 9 Habits to Make You Happier, Healthier, and More Resilient, Valerie Burton

I work with clients who experience “business anxiety” and exposure helps them to step out of their comfort zone in their business. Implement what you read in the books, and practice what you learn from your coach. Try something new, even if it scares you, this will build your confidence.

Every time you try something new, take a moment to reflect and record your progress. You should see a trend of small wins.

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

Many of my clients, find me through Google searches and from content on social media. When you’re a new therapist, coach, or consultant, you may feel like growing your clients’ list is really challenging.

Service-based professionals, can’t rely on posting pictures of a product to get customers.

Service-based entrepreneurs rely on content and connections. My most effective strategy for growing clientele has been curating content about my niche “mental health for entrepreneurs”, getting listed on referral sites, and developing relationships with other entrepreneurs, who are great referral sources.

Here are 5 things you can do to grow your clientele.

1. Build more online visibility through blogs, videos, or podcasts with a call to action.
2. Grow your professional network and build business relationships.
3. Get listed on referral sites and business directories.
4. Grow your email list by offering a free download or webinar.
5. Collaborate with entrepreneurs with similar demographics.

You have to create content that speaks to your target clients’ challenges. Then you have to consistently grow your visibility. You can build visibility online and in person. It’s always great to ask for referrals as well. If no one knows about you or your services, you won’t have any clients. Whatever you do, be strategic and consistent.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theconquernetwork.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theconquernetwork/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theconquernetwork
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/askcoachsen/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrcdK3J5w7u6a7NazWqPHig
• Other: https://www.senecawilliams.com/

Image Credits
Alex Simon Photography Barry University Flourish Media The Magus Films