I Love Coaching Podcast

You know your stuff. You've solved the exact problem your clients are stuck in. So why does a piece of paper from someone else's certification program still feel like the missing piece?

In this episode, Adam Roach and Jess Webber take on certifications directly, and they don't hold back. Adam opens with a blunt take: certifications build authority that isn't actually yours. Jess agrees, pulling from her background in education, where she had to certify across grade levels and subjects just to be allowed to teach, even though the certificate never measured whether she was actually good at it.

The conversation moves quickly from certifications into something bigger: the difference between framework and authority. Adam draws a comparison to buying a blueprint to build a house. Paying for a framework to build your coaching business makes sense. But the blueprint isn't your authority. Your authority is what Adam calls your "problem solution cycle," the actual life and business problems you've already lived through and solved. Jess extends the idea with her own analogy: walking into a room as an experienced plumber and being handed a welder's toolkit. You can learn the tools, but that doesn't make welding your authority.

Both hosts get personal here. Adam shares the story of chasing a John Maxwell certification early in his leadership career and feeling like an imposter performing someone else's material. Jess talks about scrapping an entire brand she built before Big Ideas Made Simple, once she realized she was borrowing authority instead of standing in her own.

What you'll learn:

• Why a certification can build your knowledge without ever becoming your authority
• The difference between "framework buying" and borrowed authority
• How to spot borrowed authority in the way someone introduces themselves
• Why high achievers are especially prone to what Adam calls an "identity crisis"
• What actually builds client trust, and why it has nothing to do with letters after your name
• Why dependent coaching models create the same borrowed-authority trap as certifications
• How shifting from "mirror" thinking to "window" thinking changes the way you show up publicly

The big idea in this episode is simple but hard to sit with: nobody is buying your certificate. They're buying the problem you've already solved and the clarity you can hand them because of it. The moment you lead with a credential instead of your lived experience, you're telling people, even if you don't mean to, that you don't fully trust yourself yet.

Notable quote:

"Nobody is buying your piece of paper on the wall. They're buying your experience and your expertise in the things that you've lived and the things that you've overcome." — Jess Webber

Resources mentioned:

• I Love Coaching Co. Sellable Offer Challenge and the four Ps pedestal framework referenced from the challenge
• The REAL Coach Blueprint
• ilovecoachingco.com
• Instagram: @ilovecoachingco / @adamrroach / @thejesswebber
• YouTube: youtube.com/@ilovecoachingco

Timestamps:

[00:00] Intro: "Certifications suck"

[00:46] Jess's education background and the certification trap

[02:03] Framework buying versus authority: the blueprint analogy

[03:10] Certifications as an imposter-syndrome crutch

[05:07] The plumber and welder analogy

[06:14] Adam's John Maxwell certification story

[07:38] Certifications as "participation trophies"

[09:05] You've already been certified by life

[13:00] Jess on scrapping her old brand and building Big Ideas Made Simple

[14:08] Why borrowed authority takes longer to earn trust

[17:04] How people introduce themselves reveals borrowed authority

[18:04] High achievers and "identity crisis"

[20:02] Why credentials don't automatically build trust

[23:02] Dependent coaching models and borrowed brand authority

[24:11] Mirror versus window: nobody cares about you

[25:46] How to tell if your content is actually landing

[28:01] Wrap-up and what's coming in Part 5

Join the community:

Ready to build a coaching business you're proud of, on your own authority instead of someone else's? The ILC community is where coaches go to stop guessing and start growing. ilovecoachingco.com

You've got clients on your calendar right now who don't actually feel like a fit. Maybe you like them fine, maybe the check clears, but something about the work feels harder than it should. If you've ever caught yourself hoping a client doesn't cancel instead of hoping they book again, this episode is for you.

Adam and Jess are three episodes deep into their "Is This Actually Yours?" series, and this one turns the lens on the client sitting across from you. Adam opens with his own story of coaching an avatar he'd inherited from a past container, the recruiters and leaders he was "supposed" to coach because that's who he'd always coached, whether or not there was any real passion behind it. Jess flips the coin and names the other version of this trap: coaches who build their avatar around who they want to become someday instead of who they've actually gotten results for. Both point to the same root problem. When you coach from an identity that isn't fully yours, whether inherited or aspirational, the mismatch shows up in your calendar.

The conversation builds toward the Avatar Fit Filter, three questions Adam and Jess use to audit a client roster: do you like them, can you and will you help them with the specific outcome you've defined, and can they actually afford you. Jess adds a bonus filter on top: do your current clients reflect who you are at your best, or who you were willing to settle for before you had confidence in your pricing and your process.

What you'll learn:

• Why coaching to an old professional identity keeps you stuck with the wrong clients
• The difference between inheriting an avatar and reaching for one you haven't earned yet
• The three-question Avatar Fit Filter for auditing your current roster
• Why discounting your price is usually a sign you've got the wrong client, not the wrong price
• Jess's BEAT method (Break, Examine, Audit, Tune) for slowing down before you scale
• A red light, green light exercise for your calendar that makes the wrong clients easier to spot
• Why "inviting" beats "convincing" every time you're signing a new client

The big idea here is simple but uncomfortable: your calendar is currently full of information about what you actually believe about your business, whether or not that matches what you'd say out loud. Every client you're afraid to lose, chasing to close, or discounting for is telling you something about a mismatch between your defined outcome and who you're actually letting onto your calendar. The fix isn't dramatic. It's an audit, not a demolition.

Notable quote:

"If you ever have to feel like you're selling or convincing, it's not the right client." — Adam Roach

Resources mentioned:

• Rory Vaden (referenced as a recurring influence on positioning and strategic client selection)
• Donald Miller's jar and label metaphor (referenced, though Adam misremembered the exact line, which Jess corrected: you cannot read the label from inside the jar)
• Graham Cochrane's "I will invite you, but I'm not gonna chase you" framing
• ILC community: ilovecoachingco.com
• Instagram: @ilovecoachingco / @adamrroach / @thejesswebber
• YouTube: youtube.com/@ilovecoachingco

Timestamps:

[00:00] Intro: Part 3 of 5, is the avatar actually yours

[01:10] Why this is the most timely conversation in their world right now

[02:29] Coaching to an old identity: Adam's "that guy that built" story

[06:00] The "founder" title trend and inherited containers

[07:33] Peeling off borrowed labels, the jar and label metaphor

[10:36] Jess's BEAT method: slow down to speed up

[11:42] The three-question Avatar Fit Filter

[13:55] Naming the framework and why outcome-fit matters more than liking someone

[16:15] Discounting price as a signal you have the wrong client

[18:48] The red light, green light calendar exercise

[20:55] Whys vs. whos vs. whats

[22:26] Wrap-up and where to find more

Ready to build a coaching business you're proud of? The ILC community is where coaches go to stop guessing and start growing. ilovecoachingco.com/discover

If your sales calls feel harder than they should, your pricing feels wrong the second someone asks about it, or your offer just does not feel like it belongs to you, this episode names exactly why. Adam Roach and Jess Webber sit down for episode two of a five-part series on ownership, this time turning the lens on the offer itself.

Adam opens with a confession. When he coached with Dan Martell, he memorized, internalized, and personalized a model that was not his own, and it wore him out. Jess pushes it further and points out Adam did the same thing when he first built I Love Coaching Co, modeling another coaching company's business model before the two of them sat down and built something that actually matched his vision. That distinction between rip-off and duplicate (what they used to call R&D) and something built from your own lived experience runs through the entire conversation.

They walk through what an unowned offer actually costs a coach. It is harder to sell. Harder to sustain. Harder to scale. And it is harder to price correctly, because coaches running someone else's borrowed model tend to price themselves instead of the outcome they deliver, and they almost always price too low. Jess compares it to wearing somebody else's shoes: the fit is just wrong, and everyone around you can tell.

What You'll Learn

• How to tell the difference between an offer you built and one you R&D'd (rip-off and duplicate) from someone who worked
• Why the urge to lower your price the moment it feels uncomfortable is usually a sign your offer isn't yours, not a sign your price is wrong
• Why clients who succeed through a borrowed model don't create the same retention and stickiness as clients who succeed through something you built
• Why most coaches are carrying too many features, bonuses, and add-ons on their offer, and what to strip away instead
• Why people are paying for the how you got the outcome, not a how-to to get the outcome
• Why clarity, not cleverness, is what actually sells an offer

The Big Idea

An offer that isn't fully yours will always cost you more than it should, in energy, in pricing confidence, in client retention, and in how hard you have to work to explain it. Building your own offer from your own vision, even if it takes longer than borrowing someone else's, is what makes selling, sustaining, and scaling actually possible.

Notable Quote

"People are paying for the how you got the outcome, not a how-to to get the outcome." — Jess Webber

Resources Mentioned

• Sellable Offer Challenge: ilovecoachingco.com/challenge
• REAL Coach Method Membership: ilovecoachingco.com/discover
• ILC community: ilovecoachingco.com
• Instagram: @ilovecoachingco / @adamrroach / @coachjesswebber
• YouTube: youtube.com/@ilovecoachingco

Join the Community

Ready to build a coaching offer you can stand behind and price with confidence? The Sellable Offer Challenge is where coaches go to stop guessing and start building something that's actually theirs. ilovecoachingco.com/challenge

You don't need a bigger following. You need one real conversation with the right person.

That's the uncomfortable truth new coaches avoid, because it's easier to post another Instagram Reel than to sit across from someone and ask what they're actually struggling with. Adam sits down with Candy Motzek, a coach for coaches who left a high-pressure corporate leadership role (and a severe burnout that once made her forget her own phone number) to build a business helping professionals and senior leaders become coaches without quitting their identity in the process.

Candy's story doesn't start with a business plan. It starts on a cruise ship headed toward Cape Horn, terrified of waters she'd built up in her head as dangerous, only to sail through them flat calm and sunny. That single moment cracked open a bigger question: how many other things had she talked herself out of before ever testing whether the fear was real? Two weeks later she was in her first coach training.

What makes this conversation useful isn't the origin story, though. It's what Candy does with new coaches once they've made the leap. She doesn't send them straight to social media. She has them run a research project or survey with the exact people they want as clients, which does two things at once: it hands the new coach language and authority they didn't have to invent, and it puts them in direct conversation with future clients before they've built anything to sell.

What you'll learn:

• Why the fear you're avoiding is usually bigger in your head than in reality, and how to test it instead of managing around it
• How to build authority as a brand new coach using research conversations and surveys instead of a following
• Why one-on-one clients are the right starting point before group programs or masterminds
• The real math behind coaching pricing, and why your old salary has nothing to do with what you should charge
• Why "coach goes first" isn't a slogan, it's the actual reason coaches need coaches
• How to reconnect with what you loved before titles and responsibility buried it

Candy's clearest reframe: most new coaches think they need permission or visibility before anyone will pay them. What actually signs clients is a real, curious conversation with someone who already trusts you, which means the exposure-first approach most new coaches default to is solving the wrong problem entirely.

Notable quote:

"If you believe that people should pay you to be a coach, then you should be investing in your own coaching too." — Candy Motzek

Guest bio:

Candy Motzek is a coach for coaches who helps professionals and senior leaders build coaching businesses without abandoning their existing expertise. She hosts the podcast She Coaches Coaches and previously spent years in corporate leadership as an engineer before a severe burnout redirected her path.

Resources mentioned:

• She Coaches Coaches podcast (Candy Motzek's show)
• Candy's free 8-part mini training: candysfreegift.com
• ILC community: ilovecoachingco.com
• Instagram: @ilovecoachingco / @adamrroach / @thejesswebber
• YouTube: youtube.com/@ilovecoachingco

Timestamps:

[00:00] Intro, welcoming Candy

[00:39] Candy's origin story: corporate leadership to coaching

[02:53] The burnout that made her forget her own phone number

[06:02] The Antarctica cruise and the fear that wasn't real

[08:07] Coaching professionals and senior leaders through the "real job" stigma

[12:44] Finding purpose: "coming home to who you are"

[15:10] Building authority through research conversations and surveys

[17:17] How to reconnect with what lights you up

[19:36] Why one-on-one comes before group coaching

[23:18] Pricing: business owner math vs. employee wage

[26:49] Why coaches need coaches

[29:17] Where to find Candy: She Coaches Coaches + free gift

Join the community:

Ready to build a coaching business you're proud of? The ILC community is where coaches go to stop guessing and start growing. ilovecoachingco.com/discover

You can spend years building a coaching business on language that was never yours to begin with. You absorbed it from the program you joined, the mentor you followed, the framework you bought — and because it worked for them, you kept using it. The problem isn't that you learned from someone else. The problem is that you never stopped to check whether what you're saying is actually what you believe.

That's what this episode is about.

Adam and Jess kick off a new five-part series by naming the thing nobody in the coaching industry wants to say out loud: a lot of coaches are operating inside someone else's identity. Not because they're dishonest, but because borrowing confidence from a borrowed message feels safer than standing fully in your own. And it works, right up until the moment it doesn't, and your audience can feel the gap between what you're saying and who you actually are.

The conversation moves between Adam's experience as a tennis coach (where he created his now-legendary "armed forces forehand" framing for full-body swing technique) and Jess's background as a classroom educator, where she learned early that the difference between teaching and regurgitating is whether you actually own the material. Both threads land in the same place: when the messaging is yours, trust builds. When it isn't, people can feel it, even if they can't name it.

What you'll take away from this episode:

• Why borrowing someone else's message means borrowing someone else's belief — and why that shows up more than you think
• The difference between learning from a framework and actually owning one (there's a specific moment the transition happens, and most coaches skip it)
• How the information age gave way to the implementation age, and what that means for how you position yourself now
• Why the AI era is accelerating a crisis of authenticity — and how coaches who do the identity work will be the ones people trust
• What "AI slop" actually signals to your audience and how to make sure your messaging doesn't read like it
• A simple reframe: leverage every tool you have to become more human, not less
• The tactical next step: slowing down to audit your language before you accelerate your growth

The Main Idea:

Most coaches aren't lacking content or strategy. They're lacking language that's actually theirs. And until you sit down and identify which parts of your messaging fit and which parts belong to someone else's worldview, you'll keep feeling like you're performing a version of coaching instead of living it. The coaches who break through are the ones who did the slow, uncomfortable work of converting borrowed language into owned belief.

Notable Quote:

"Leverage the tools to be more human." — Jess Webber

Resources Mentioned:

• Dan Henry's course (referenced as an example of learning a framework, then building your own — not an endorsement)
• Graham Cochrane's concept of a "premise" as a universal belief in your space
• The ILC Blueprint: ILC's proprietary methodology for building a process that's uniquely yours
• ILC community and events: ilovecoachingco.com
• Instagram: @ilovecoachingco / @adamrroach / @thejesswebber
• YouTube: youtube.com/@ilovecoachingco

Join the Community:

If this hit and you're ready to stop operating inside someone else's framework, this is exactly what ILC is built for. Challenges, intensives, membership — find what fits where you are right now at ilovecoachingco.com.

You already know your stuff. You've built the credentials, done the work, put in the hours. So why does it still feel shaky the moment someone challenges you, doubts you, or the moment you step into a space you haven't occupied before?

This conversation with Nassim Ebrahimi is not a motivation talk. It's a masterclass on what confidence actually is, where it comes from, and why so many coaches and athletes are building it on the wrong foundation.

Nassim came from one of the most linear, high-achievement career paths you'll find, earning a psychology background (neurobiology, physiology, developmental psych) and rising to one of the youngest vice presidencies in her state. Then COVID hit, and instead of taking the next logical step toward a college presidency, she stopped. She sat in the discomfort of not knowing what was next. And from that pause, an entirely different career emerged, one grounded in mental performance coaching for athletes, executives, and coaches who want to stop cracking under pressure.

Adam and Nassim cover a lot of ground in Part 1 of this two-part conversation, including the emotional reality of a major career pivot, why your title is not your identity, and a surprisingly simple equation for building confidence that doesn't depend on everything going right.

What you'll learn from this conversation:

• Why the first day after a major life pivot is the hardest one (and what to actually do with it)
• How Nassim defines mental toughness, and why it has nothing to do with hiding your emotions
• The exact confidence equation she coaches athletes and executives with: Confidence = Trusting Your Skills + Owning Your Role
• Why unshakable confidence isn't about staying at a constant high, it's about knowing which variable to lean into when one drops
• How she went from volunteering at her daughter's soccer practice to coaching pro athletes (and why the transition was less random than it looks)
• What coaches can learn from the way athletes handle adversity, and vice versa
• What Adam means when he says "borrowing confidence" from your coach, and why authentic confidence is the only kind worth borrowing

The big idea:

Confidence is not a fixed character trait. It's a math problem. Nassim teaches it as an equation: trust your skills plus own your role. When one side of that equation dips (as it will, because you're human), you lean harder on the other side to keep the whole structure stable. That's not a mindset hack. That's a system. And for coaches who work with athletes, clients, or anyone in transition, this reframe changes what coaching confidence actually looks like in practice.

Notable Quote:

"Mental toughness brings mental clarity. If you can keep your physiology, your language, and your focus productive simultaneously, that is a stronger mind." -- Nassim Ebrahimi

Guest Bio:

Nassim Ebrahimi is a mental performance coach, former higher-education executive, and founder of Becoming My Stronger Me. She coaches athletes from youth to professional level, executives in transition, and coaches looking to integrate mental performance techniques into their work. She's also the author of The Stronger Mind, available through her website at www.becomingmystrongerme.com.

Resources Mentioned:

• The Stronger Mind by Nassim Ebrahimi -- www.becomingmystrongerme.com
• Baller Goals by Nassim Ebrahimi (soccer-specific training book)
• Nassim's coaching program for coaches: quarterly cohort launching mid-June 2026 (email [email protected] for next cohort info)
• ILC community: ilovecoachingco.com
• Instagram: @ilovecoachingco / @adamrroach / @thejesswebber
• YouTube: youtube.com/@ilovecoachingco
• Nassim on Instagram: @strongerme | LinkedIn: Nassim Ebrahimi | TikTok: @becomingmystrongerme

Timestamps:

• [00:00] Intro and welcome -- Adam introduces Nassim
• [00:39] You were born, and then what happened? -- Nassim's origin story
• [04:48] From psychology to the lecture hall to VP -- the linear path
• [09:19] The moment of pause: do I love it enough?
• [13:07] The first day after resignation (and why she cried for hours)
• [16:40] Getting off the couch: how Nassim built back
• [17:38] "I trusted me" -- the decision before the decision
• [19:44] Who are you without your title?
• [21:09] Volunteering everywhere and finding the coaching path by accident
• [27:38] Adam reflects: transferable skills and borrowed confidence
• [30:48] The confidence equation: Trusting Your Skills + Owning Your Role
• [34:58] Nassim's business: one-on-one, teams, keynotes, and the coach program
• [39:27] The Stronger Mind book origin story
• [41:46] Baller Goals and what's next
• [42:19] Adam's giveaway: first 10 DMs get a free book
• [43:23] Nassim's book club offer: 10 friends + a free hour with Nassim
• [44:51] What mental toughness actually looks like on the other side of coaching
• [47:27] The cliffhanger: Part 2 is coming
• [49:46] Closing reflections and mutual appreciation

Join the Community:

If today's conversation stirred something for you, whether about your own identity, your confidence, or the coaches and clients you serve, the ILC community is where that conversation continues. Come build with us at ilovecoachingco.com.

You finally nailed your messaging. Your offer makes sense. People are signing up. And then you launch your group program, or step on a stage, or start a podcast, and suddenly none of it works anymore. What happened?

This is the final episode in our seven part Maslow's Mountain series, and it might be the most important one. Adam and Jess close out the series by naming the exact thing that trips up coaches right after they've had success: they treat what they learned like a checklist. Check the box, move on, forget it ever happened. Then they step into a new space, a new offer, a new stage, and they climb right back to the top of the mountain they just spent six episodes learning to climb down from.

Adam calls it language creep. Jess calls it the now what problem. Either way, it's the same pattern. You build a one to one practice using Maslow's hierarchy to meet your avatar where they are. It works. Then you launch a group program, or get invited to speak, or start a podcast, and you go right back to summit language. "I built this incredible framework." "Here's everything I've accomplished." And the audience you're now in front of doesn't speak that language, because they're standing somewhere completely different on the mountain than you are.

What You'll Learn:

• Why "checklist thinking" is the most common reason coaches lose momentum right after a win
• The difference between the mountain you climbed and the mountain you're climbing next, and why your messaging has to reset for each one
• Why authority on a stage doesn't come from sounding smart, and why over explaining actually loses your audience
• How to use Maslow's hierarchy as an audit tool for slide decks, ad copy, funnels, and anything else you put in front of your avatar
• The real difference between being an educator and being an influencer, and why neither should be your identity
• A practical way to use AI to prepare for podcast guest appearances, keynotes, or any new platform by feeding it your messaging and asking for an audit, not a generic summary
• Why this entire seven part series comes down to one sentence: it's not about you

The Big Idea:

Every time you move to a new "mountain," whether that's launching a group program, stepping on a stage, or starting a podcast, your avatar resets to their own base camp. Your framework, your payoff, even your credibility can stay the same. But your language has to meet them where they are, not where you are. The coaches who keep winning are the ones who keep auditing their messaging against Maslow's hierarchy every single time they show up somewhere new.

Notable Quote:

"You don't have to look good and be right to gain authority. Your feet being on the stage already give you authority." - Jess Webber

Resources Mentioned:

• Story Brand and Hero on a Mission by Donald Miller, referenced as ongoing filters for hero vs. guide positioning
• Get Paid to Coach free guide at ilovecoachingco.com/get-paid-to-coach
• $10K+ Coaching Offer Challenge at ilovecoachingco.com/challenge
• REAL Coach Method Membership at ilovecoachingco.com/discover
• Instagram: @ilovecoachingco / @adamrroach / @coachjesswebber
• YouTube: youtube.com/@ilovecoachingco

Join the Community:

If you're building a coaching business, already running one, or just starting to think about it, ILC has resources for wherever you are. Free guides, live and virtual events, and a community built specifically for coaches who want something that's actually theirs. Find it all at ilovecoachingco.com.

You built something that works. You know it works because clients have told you so. But when it comes time to share that proof, something freezes up. It feels like bragging. It feels like selling. So you say nothing, or you bury the win in data and credentials nobody asked for, and the person on the other side of the table leaves without knowing you could actually help them.

That's exactly what Adam and Jess dig into in this episode, the sixth in their seven-part Maslow Mountain series. And the answer is simpler than most coaches expect: one story, told from the right place on the mountain, does more than a hundred polished sales calls ever could.

The whole premise of "Proof That Works" is that testimonials and case studies aren't marketing tools. They're relationship tools. When you frame a client win as a story, told from the client's perspective and anchored at the level of the problem they were actually experiencing, the right avatar can see themselves in it. They stop evaluating you and start imagining what's possible for them. That's the shift from a sales call to a discovery call where they end up asking you how to work together.

Jess shares a real example from a recent introductory call: one client story, one clearly articulated outcome, and every objection the prospect had was handled before it was ever spoken. No pitch, no close, just proof told as narrative. Adam builds on that with the flywheel framework: one offer, one conversion, one payoff, one testimonial, one story that keeps repeating as you continue to attract the same avatar.

The conversation also addresses the coaches who hesitate to share wins because they don't want to come across as self-promotional. Adam and Jess are clear on this distinction: promotion is about you, proof is about your client. When the story centers the avatar as the one who did the work and achieved the outcome, you are not the hero of that story. You're the guide. And that framing changes how people receive it entirely.

What you'll take away from this episode:

• Why one well-told client story outperforms a library of testimonials no one reads
• How to tell a story that lands at the right level on Maslow's Mountain, so it actually connects with the person you want to attract
• The storytelling framework: context, emotion, obstacle, resolution, and how to sequence them so your avatar sees themselves before you ever mention your offer
• Why proof and promotion are two completely different things, and how to tell which one you're doing
• How pre-handling objections through story means you never have to answer them directly on a call
• The specialist vs. generalist distinction and why generalist coaches struggle to build any proof that actually converts
• How to turn a single client result into a flywheel that keeps attracting the right people consistently

The big idea: Coaches who struggle to attract clients usually have enough proof. What they don't have is a story. The proof exists in their work. The story is what makes it land with the next person who needs it. When you stop trying to convince and start telling the truth about what happened for someone else, you move from selling to serving. And the close takes care of itself.

Notable quote:

"I don't ever feel like I'm promoting. I just feel so confident in the outcome that I've gotten people that it makes it easy to connect." -- Jess Webber

Resources Mentioned:

• StoryBrand framework (Donald Miller) -- referenced as context for guide vs. hero language
• ILC community and events: ilovecoachingco.com
• Instagram: @ilovecoachingco / @adamrroach / @thejesswebber
• YouTube: youtube.com/@ilovecoachingco

Ready to stop guessing and start growing? The ILC community is where coaches build real, aligned businesses grounded in their actual expertise. Join us at ilovecoachingco.com.

You think you know who your avatar is. You're probably wrong.

Not because you haven't thought about it. Not because you lack experience or expertise. But because most coaches are describing their avatar from the top of the mountain, in language that makes total sense to them and zero sense to the person at the base.

That is the avatar problem. And it is not the avatar's problem. It's yours.

In this episode, Adam and Jess are naming the thing that sits underneath every marketing frustration, every slow launch, every "I don't know why this isn't working" moment in a coaching business. If you are not getting enough clients, your avatar clarity is almost certainly part of the reason. It's not the only variable, but it is the one that makes every other variable harder to fix.

The avatar problem shows up in a few specific ways. Some coaches have it because they are trying to speak to everyone and therefore speaking to no one. Some coaches have it because they have built their messaging around a job title or industry rather than a lived problem they have actually solved. And some coaches have it because they are so deep in the expertise of their niche that they've lost the ability to speak in the language of someone who hasn't arrived there yet.

Adam and Jess have had every version of this problem themselves. The challenge was called the "10K Coaching Offer Challenge" for years. The intensive was the "Quarter Million Coach Intensive." Both were named for an old version of an old avatar, built around aspirational income language that made sense to them and filtered out the exact coach who needed them most. When they ran their own positioning through the Maslow Mountain filter, they renamed both. Not because the content changed. Because the avatar did.

IN THIS EPISODE:

- Why "if you don't have enough clients, you might have an avatar problem" is the fastest self-diagnostic you can run right now

- The Rory Vaden principle that actually defines who you are built to serve (and it has nothing to do with credentials or certifications)

- Why the specialist always beats the generalist, and the cardiac surgeon story that makes it click permanently

- The two ways coaches speak about their avatar publicly, and why only one of them generates referrals

- Adam's 30-year-old tennis evaluation sheet and the moment he realized he should have been coaching serves, not tennis

- The relevance pitch framework, what it is and why "internal niche, external relevant" is the rule that ends the verbal vomit problem

- What happened to the challenge participant who walked in with a five-minute monologue and walked out with a six-word sentence

- Why imposter syndrome, silo-building, and unclear avatar language are the exact same problem wearing three different outfits

- How Adam and Jess renamed both their challenge and their intensive after running their own language through the Maslow filter

THE BIG IDEA:

Your avatar is not defined by who you want to serve. It is defined by who you are actually built to serve, the person walking the path you have already walked. The coach who gets clear on that stops chasing clients and starts attracting them. But here is the part most coaches skip: your language for that avatar cannot come from the top of the mountain. You have to climb back down, remember what it felt like to stand at the base, and speak from there.

MEMORABLE LINES FROM THIS EPISODE:

"The avatar problem is not the avatar's problem. You have an avatar problem because you don't know specifically what you solve."

"We don't want you to appeal to the masses. Do not appeal to the masses. We want you to appeal to a very small subset of the masses because you are a specialist in this space."

"Internal niche, external relevant. That's the key."

"I can't tell you the majority of the nurses that were in my son's NICU room, but you bet your bottom dollar I can name first and last name the doctor who did my son's heart surgery."

"The worst language that we hear comes from the people who build in a silo the most."

YOUR ONE THING THIS WEEK:

Run the two-question self-diagnostic. First: do you have enough clients? If the answer is no, your avatar language is worth a hard look. Second: take your current way of describing what you do and read it out loud to someone who has no context for your niche. If they look confused, ask more questions, or go quiet, that is not engagement. That is polite disengagement. Start there. Simpler, cleaner, more specific to the problem. Not to the credential. Not to the methodology. The problem.

CONNECT WITH ADAM AND JESS:

If this one hit close to home, come find us at ilovecoachingco.com. That is where our upcoming events live, where the community is, and where you can connect with us directly. If you are ready to stop building alone and start getting real feedback on your avatar and your offer, the Sellable Offer Challenge is the place to start. ilovecoachingco.com/challenge If you know a coach who keeps saying their marketing isn't working but can't explain who they help in one clear sentence, send them this one. That is exactly who this episode is for.

Follow the show: @ilovecoachingco on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook

KEY THEMES:

- Avatar clarity as a business diagnostic, not a branding exercise

- Maslow's Mountain as a positioning filter

- Specialist vs. generalist in coaching

- Relevance pitch: internal niche, external relevance

- Lived experience as the foundation of authority

- Silo-building and its relationship to imposter syndrome

- Public language vs. enrollment language for coaches

- Feedback as a competitive advantage in offer development

You've got the message. You know who you're talking to. So why isn't the marketing working?

That's the exact question Adam Roach and Jess Webber dig into in Part 4 of the Maslow Mountain series. This is the episode where the internal work you've done on messaging finally has to go public, and it turns out that's where most coaches hit a wall they didn't see coming.

The conversation starts with a distinction that sounds simple but cuts deep: marketing versus performing. If you've been tweaking your message to fit the room, adjusting your language based on who's watching, or changing what you lead with depending on the platform, that's performance. Marketing is something different. It's a clear, consistent message people start to associate with you before you ever show up. It's reputation built in advance. And the gap between those two things is costing coaches real opportunity every single day.

Adam and Jess also get into the owned versus borrowed media question, and they're not gentle about it. Borrowed media, your social platforms, your Instagram followers, your TikTok audience, works until it doesn't. You don't own any of it, and one algorithm change or account suspension can erase years of effort overnight. The more durable play is building something you own, getting consistent there first, and then using borrowed platforms to invite people into it, not the other way around.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why most coaches are performing instead of marketing, and exactly what the difference looks like in practice
• The "see vs. seek" framework: why you want people actively looking for your solution, not just noticing you exist
• Why you get tired of your marketing before your market does, and what to do about it
• The owned vs. borrowed media strategy ILC uses to control their marketing machine
• How Adam and Jess grew ILC's email open rates from under 20% to nearly 67% by fixing message-to-avatar alignment
• What a lead magnet actually needs to do (and why a simple Google Doc outperformed a professionally designed one)
• How to build marketing that keeps running even when you're not in the room

The big idea here is the machine. When your messaging is accurate, when it lands with the right avatar at the right place on the mountain, marketing stops being something you have to push. It starts being something that pulls people toward you while you're doing everything else. That's not a dream state. Adam and Jess are living it right now, and they show the receipts.

Resources Mentioned:

• ILC Community + New Lead Magnet: ilovecoachingco.com
• Upcoming Sellable Offers Challenge: ilovecoachingco.com/challenge
• Instagram: @ilovecoachingco / @adamrroach / @thejesswebber
• YouTube: youtube.com/@ilovecoachingco

Timestamps:

• [00:00] Intro + Series Recap (Parts 1–3)
• [03:11] Marketing vs. Performing: What's the Difference?
• [05:39] See vs. Seek: The Framework
• [07:06] Why Coaches Quit Marketing Too Soon
• [09:02] Owned vs. Borrowed Media
• [13:18] The Dangers of Building Only on Social (Real Story)
• [15:34] ILC's Email Data: Open Rates from Sub-20% to 67%
• [18:54] How to Build a Lead Magnet from What You Already Do
• [23:39] The Machine: Marketing That Runs Without You
• [27:03] ILC's New Lead Magnet + Sellable Offers Challenge Teaser
• [28:04] Sneak Peek: Episode 5 — The Avatar Problem

Ready to stop guessing and start growing? The ILC community is where coaches build businesses they're actually proud of. Head to ilovecoachingco.com to check out the new lead magnet and the upcoming Sellable Offers Challenge.