#168. Build a Profitable Quilting Business with Life Coaching: Proven Strategies for Success

Have you ever felt stuck while trying to build your quilting business and wondered if there’s a way to overcome the mental and emotional challenges of entrepreneurship? Life coaching might be the missing piece you need. In this episode, we explore how life coaching can help you gain clarity, build confidence, and create a sustainable business model for your quilting venture.

In this episode, I’ll share actionable strategies for building a successful long-arm quilting business, from setting up your studio to pricing your services effectively. You’ll hear real-life success stories of quilters who used both business tools and life coaching techniques to reach their goals. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to grow, life coaching offers valuable insights to help you navigate challenges and achieve business success.

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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

  • How life coaching can help you overcome mindset barriers and build confidence as a quilting business owner.
  • The key steps to set up and grow your quilting business, including marketing and pricing strategies.
  • How to balance your passion for quilting with the practicalities of running a successful business.

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  • Watch this episode on YouTube.
  • If you are ready to lose weight and change the way you think, sign up for the lifetime access for The Pieceful Heart Membership! Doors are open and you can find all the information by clicking here.
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Full Episode Transcript:

Dara Tomasson Podcast Episode 168

168. Build a Profitable Quilting Business with Life Coaching: Proven Strategies for Success

Do you feel like you have tried to have a business from home, especially with quilting and you fail and you don’t know what’s happening and you’ve tried so hard. And you just haven’t got traction. Well, this episode is for you. My name is Dara Tomasson. This is the quilters coach podcasts.

Episode Business Coaching with Life Coaching.

​Okay. I understand that life coaching is very broad in general. And in fact, it’s unregulated. Industry out there. So you never really know what you’re going to get with life coaching, but I, since you’re listening to this episode and you’ve been listening to my podcast, One of my goals is to help you see the connection of life coaching and the power that it has to help us to really create the kind of life that we want to live. And this episode is going to be focusing on how do you build a quilting business?

I’m going to be giving the example of a long-arm quilting business. In this episode, there are general business applications. And so if you’re curious or you’re trying to do a business yourself, this episode is for you. Now, before we get into the heart of the episode, I always love to share wins from the members in my membership.

And this one is one of my clients. I’ve been working with them for a long time. And she’s been wanting to do a quilting business. For years and finally got a long arm. It was a gift from her mom and she invested in pro Stitcher. She figured it out. And she just did her first client quilt with pro Stitcher and got paid. So she is just so excited. She’s been learning as we go on how to create a business that is actually sustainable, that you can live off of.

And you don’t have all this fear around. Can I do this now? The ripple effects of her learning postage one. Now she can offer that kind of level two. Her clientele is not every, and she’s an amazing, Custom quilter. But not every quilt needs to be customised, quilted. And so this way it saves her body.

So she doesn’t have to be spending all this time because I get it. This custom quilting can take a toll on your body. She can now offer that level of quilting to those people who want that. And then she can. Have the time. Like I said, her body does the custom work. Now she’s a happier person, because she has now gone through. So her husband benefits her children and her family benefits because she has this new level of confidence that she didn’t have before. And so she kind of takes herself to that next notch. All right.

So one of the things about life coaching is that it helps you to see a problem in your life. And work through it and we have lots of different tools. To do that. When you think about being a business owner, the essential part of running a business is you have a solution. To other people’s problems. So I like to think about it as they have an itch. That they just can’t get satisfied and you are there to help them. Here we go. So there is a book out there by Donald Miller. And it’s called the StoryBrand. You think of stories? The Hobbit Harry Potter. The hunger games, star wars, some of the most epic stories. They all have a very similar vein. Every story always begins with a hero’s problem.

Now, your clients, your potential clients, they’re heroes. They don’t identify themselves as the hero Harry Potter. I did not identify himself as a hero.

Luke Skywalker did not identify himself as a hero. All of these characters, they don’t see themselves that way. And so, but they have a problem. And so because they have a problem, they meet a guide and this guide helps them with a simple plan that says, this is what you need to do. And they help that hero who doesn’t think that they’re our hero. I when you think about a long term quilting business, there’s a woman out there. Who has put so much time, energy, money, and effort into making this beautiful quilt top.

She really wants it to look like the picture in the magazine. But she cannot do that. But she can find you. She can pay you. To create the final product. You are there to help them to create that final. To get the end result that they really want. So the hero follows that plan. And experienced success and avoided failure.

When you think about that? I want you to think about what your client’s problems are. So I’m just looking at when I did this StoryBrand idea with my StoryBrand coach. It’s like, what are the problems that my clients have? So they feel like their weight defines their worth. They fail every diet under the sun. You know, they need outside validation, perfectionism steals their joy.

So what I want you to do like this is, imagine that we’re, this is like a workshop. I want you to write it down. What are the problems that you have? Ideal client, your hero is having. Okay, so write it all down. What is their problem and get really, really clear on that. And then you are their guide to help them. So you have to show, look, I am here to help you.

I can do this. Now. When you think about every star athlete, performer, and company that hires coaches to help them. Why do they do that? So I’ve four sons and one daughter and they play a lot of basketball. My oldest son plays for a college. And In fact, this evening, I’ll be taking the boys. To the church to play in the gym and their friends are going to join them. And they’re constantly practising but they always have a coach.

So why. Is it important for them to have a coach? Well, when you think about it. You are learning something new. You don’t know what, first of all, you don’t know how to do it yet, right? And secondly, when you’re trying. You are failing. And failing is amazing. Because what feeling does is it helps you see. Where you need to improve. The w it’s always really fun for me when I’m watching my boys during their practice, where the coach says, stop, stop, stop. We’re going to go over this play.

We’re going to work through this thing and I’m going to teach you healthy habits or healthy patterns, or I’m gonna help you to refine this or find that. And that way , you can become your best. Now, one of the challenges that we have seen in the past, especially with. Jen is it gen Z? That everyone got a trophy. Right. And so now they don’t really know how to handle it. Pushback or feedback or any of that.

As a disservice to them, because they need to learn how to work through the problems.

Now. In my membership, I have a path. For women. And I only have women in my program because with weight loss, a lot of women need to create safety to lose weight because they have been either sexually molested or abused. And so keeping weight on is a way to try to keep themselves safe. So just, just to say, if you’re a man listening to a podcast, you’re welcome to listen and learn, but you’re actually not welcome in my program because of that. These women will come into my program and they say, we want to learn.

We want to lose weight. And so then they learn this process that I have, which actually gets to the root of the problem. And then they start seeing. That their confidence starts to improve. Their ability to resolve conflict starts to improve. And they want to do more in their life. They want to contribute more.

They want to expand what they’re capable of doing. In fact, today I coached a lady who wants to build a retreat center and she just hired me. Places and hosts retreats. But she wants to create, she has a big dream to create her own. And of course, It makes her a little bit nervous because it’s spending their retirement money. But What happens when you increase your confidence and you learn these tools and you go to the root of the issue. You want more? Just like this client of mine. Today I was able to get the pro Stitcher to figure it out and to do it. Create. Able to get a client to pay her. That is really exciting. But it has taken her approximately.

Five years. To get to that level of confidence. And she also needed to make a certain amount of money in her job before she could quit her full-time job to do this. Full-time. So in my program I have now offered. Five of module classes on how to build a long-term business. In those modules, we have how to market. So we’re talking about marketing. So how do you go? The three buckets of getting people to know you. To then go to serve those people and give them value and then go to that, to them actually. Buying from you. I teach you specifically about where you get your materials?

How do you source them? And then I talk about how do you set up your actual physical room? Do you have a studio that people come to? Is it a mailing? So I actually go through all the nitty gritty. I have an intake form for when someone brings you a quilt. I will talk about pricing. I will talk about it. Resolving conflict.

In fact, in modules five and six, we really go into, it’s not when you’re going to, it’s that if you’re going to have a problem, it’s when and how do you resolve those issues? And I help you with the life coaching tools to break those down. And so I wanted to just let you know that that is something that’s inside the membership. And we also have some new ones. Modules on marriage. And how to have a difficult conversation. Because just like with, an athlete or a star performer, or, you know, this. This business, a company hiring a coach.

You are. Individual who is trying to do something new for the first time. And so in order to. Do that, it’s so helpful, like Gandalf that came in and helped or, Dumbledore, it came to help Harry. Or, Yoda came to help Luke Skywalker. These people are experts. They’re there to help you. And, you know, we have Google now and we can Google all sorts of things, but what would it be like to have someone just walking you through? And we value that for our children.

We say, yes, we want our kids to be the best basketball player or soccer player or debate team player. We want them to do that, but why aren’t we doing that for ourselves? And so inside my membership. I am offering these different opportunities for growth because. Like I always say weight loss is not about the food, weight loss is, something we’re buffering with or like I had a woman just use my, ask a coach feature today. And she said that she has gained 17 pounds over the last two years. Because she had such a stressful job.

She didn’t know how to handle the traumas from the job. And now she’s using food. As, As the instant gratification. And she’s also using food as a punishment. And so when you come to a coach like me who can see the bigger picture. We can break it down and help you. I just wanted to share this podcast episode with you to let you know that there is. So much more inside the membership. Because , our life is not just one box and then another box and another box. It’s all encompassing. I also wanted to share the importance of dreaming and letting yourself.

Like fulfilling those dreams. The lady this morning, I was coaching. She remembers back when she was. Like eight years old, they used to have these marathons, you know, the TV marathons and people would donate money. She had this way and she had this great idea of how she could. Do that too.

And she would approach different adults and say, can you help me build those? Can you help me do this? And they weren’t on board as much as she was. And so it made her more nervous about really fulfilling her dreams. And when you realize that you’re your own hero in your story. And that you have a guide. Then she can come to me now and get that help. And you are an expert. Or becoming an expert in something. But you can be that guide to those people who need you. And just as I conclude. One of them. One of the obstacles that I see a lot of women suffering with, and this is this, I have worked through this over and over and I will continue is what we call it.

Imposter syndrome. Actually a lot of people. Believe that the reason they are called a syndrome is because it makes it sound like it’s something that’s happening to you. Like a disease. Like you can’t control it. But basically an imposter syndrome is thinking, who am I to be someone. In that area. My niece went to the Canadian Olympic water polo team.

My son is playing basketball on a college level. As you watched this, I was able to spend an entire weekend with Jenna Kertscher and Amy smart and all these incredible quilters. As one of the speakers. I was able to live a dream that I never thought could have been possible. But this is the biggest way that I have learned to create. More value and to work through this, who am I to be this person?

Imposter syndrome. I’m a mom of five kids who lives on an island. When I think today about this client of mine, who I met before I even became a coach and I helped her with her quilting business. I met her when I was just quilting. I wasn’t doing coaching. And she’s one of the reasons why I started doing weight loss coaching, because she asked for help. I was able to help her.

And now today, This is what, how far she’s come. That’s amazing. I’m going to keep on showing up. And I think of all these other ladies in my membership. And I think if I didn’t show up, I wouldn’t have come on Instagram. And if I didn’t have a YouTube channel or if I didn’t have a podcast, I wouldn’t be able to have. I helped that woman. And helped her have a better marriage or made decisions in her life. And so that is.

So I know this episode was, I touched on quite a few things, but the main thread that keeps it all together is you are unique and wonderful and amazing. And your desire. Is the pathway for you to know what to do. And so. You. Are the hero of your own life. And if you are struggling to become that hero, you need a guide. I am your guide. If I resonate with you, you feel this is because I am your guide and I can help you. I can teach you the tools.

I can show you the way I can help you overcome your own obstacles. Just like we get coaches for our kids to improve or tutors or however you want to call it. Why not do that for yourself. If you worry, well, I can’t do that because that would be an imposter. You just need to think. No, I have a purpose. I have a way to help people.

If I don’t show up. Then I will feel sad because they need me. And I’m just going to keep going. If you want to build a long-arm quilting business or a Quilty business, I now have six modules that are amazing inside my membership. And when you think about it, it will pay. The membership. It’ll pay for itself like 5, 6, 7 times, because even more because you will then be profitable. Long-term quilting business.

All right. I can’t wait to keep sharing with you. All of these insights and ways that you can truly live the life that you really want. So signing off for today, I’m Darren Thompson. I’m the quilters coach. And I am here to help you to truly live the life that you really want. And that you deserve.

If you aren’t loving your current life and hear yourself saying things like, I should be happier. I should be getting more done or question how productive and fulfilled you are. This podcast is for you. I’m Dara Thomas. I’m a professional quilter turned life coach for quilters, where I show you how to overcome obstacles like perfectionism, people pleasing, overeating, overcomplicating life so that you can really start to enjoy your life.

By learning and using tools for your brain to help you transform your everyday living. Are you ready to make these changes? I’m ready to help. Let’s start your transformation one UFO at a time.

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