Seven years into her business of coaching, Becky Mollenkamp is honing into the job she

Find out how the mindset coach and time-tested creator Becky Mollenkamp is evolving her creator business to do more of the work she enjoys.

What would happen If you let go of the 'shoulds' and started believing in your intuition?

For the mindset trainer Becky Mollenkamp , choosing to stop living a life of 'shoulds" changed everything, even her professional career.

Becky assists people in making the transition to go from "small company owner" to CEO and create viable businesses that don't burn out. With the Gutsy Boss brand, she has helped thousands of clients identify their own "shoulds' and determine success on their own goals.

She brings nearly 20 years working as an entrepreneur to her work, including running a six-figure content marketing company before launching her coaching business in 2015.

We recently checked in with Becky to learn what her company has changed in the past few years and review her journey as a creator. The company is going through a change while she focuses on working specifically with midsize businesses and their managers as well as employees.

Keep reading to learn the ways Becky has developed her business through trusting her instincts and getting rid of the 'shoulds' -- and helping other business owners do similar.

Finding her calling as a coach for mindset

Though Becky has been an entrepreneur for nearly twenty years, coaching wasn't ever a component of her strategy.

"What started me down the coach path was when my brother's passing in the year 2010 of a heroin overdose. The loss really brought me from my bed," Becky explains.

"I had been living a lifestyle filled with'shoulds' and going through the motions and doing everything that a good girl's supposed to do. This made me realize that life is much too brief to live one that's not exactly what you want to live."

"I didn't know what I was looking for. But I knew that I didn't want that," Becky remembers. She closed her writing business , and returned to her to her home with her mother. After that came the inner work of finding out how she wanted to do with her life.want the rest of her life be like.

Becky began to rebuild her writing business. "It was what I knew and what I was good at. But I realized what I really wanted to accomplish was assist others in breaking free of the 'shoulds'."

So she started coaching.

"I found out that I could assist people with the same stuff that I've experienced. This is the reason I realized it's what I'm destined to be doing. It's my calling."

The work she did as an owner of an agency and her an increased desire to aid people made Becky's unique viewpoint a perfect match for mindset coaching.

"I'm not a strategist or a consultant, but actually a coach. Thus, I guide people to their own decisions and their own understanding about what they want from their life or their company, then I help people move forward with that," Becky explains.

In line with helping people live their lives more fully, she brings her own beliefs to the work. "I'm an empathetic coach for women this means that I respect lived experiences and am trauma-informed. the coaching I provide is about compassionand not about blame or shame."

Inspiring by her experience and experience, Becky began building her coaching company online -- but it was not without a lot of "shoulds" too.

Distinguishing the noise of what an online business should appear to

If asked about the difficulties of building her coaching business, Becky laughs. "There was no challenge I didn't have. I feel like I had every obstacle."

The war of the "shoulds' played out here, as well. "I would say the biggest problem was the voices in the internet world about how your business ought to look and how to conduct it, and what that you have to accomplish in order to succeed," she says.

When she looks back, Becky finds this common assumption that business owners who do not start out with a full-time commitment do not believe in themselves, which is harmful and privileged. "I didn't know that in the beginning, but I was filled with guilt and feeling like I was not doing an adequate job because I still had to write [to pay the bills]."

She recollects thinking "Why couldn't I make the coaching thing more successful more quickly? What could be wrong?"

The truth is, most people can't afford to jump straight into the business of their dreams all-time. That's okay! It can be a gradual procedure, but this doesn't mean you're not dedicated or valid as an entrepreneurial.

"I was forced to perform myself the work of releasing myself from all of those guilt and shame, and to realize that the advice of take on the whole world] wasn't practical for the vast majority of people."

"The most difficult part at first was recognizing that I was able to gradually transition from a writing business to a new business." She concentrated on shifting her job 25% every year. The initial year, it was 75percent writing and 25 percentage coaching. "Honestly this is the first year in which there is 0% writing," Becky tells us.

"That was a gradual transition. Accepting it and then being able to let go of the shame about that, to realize that it's okay could be the best and most efficient way to start a new business without feeling that they have to go all into the venture or simply don't believe in their abilities."

Becky had a hard time treating herself as the CEO; to see the value in her work and think big in the big.

"You can be an independent contractor, become a sole entrepreneur or the owner of a small company by utilizing a couple of consultants . But you are still the CEO, the leader, the CEO, you are the person who is the visionary," she emphasizes.

"It's about confidence in being there and saying, 'I know the ropes. I can do this.'"

In the present, the mindset of a CEO is the main focus of her interaction with clients.

A more targeted client (while still serving her broader audience)

Becky's career is in a transition period Her focus is shifting to coaching midsize business owners and the teams they lead .

There are several motives for this change:

It aligns her work even more closely with her own knowledge and experience as a business manager.

Offering her time as a service makes Becky the most income.

It's her work that she appreciates the most.

Based on her own journey, Becky wants her clients to be able to experience "the shift that it makes internally when you treat your business like a business and treating yourself like a CEO."

"I worked with individuals, and I still do, but I'm now working with people, generally women with mid-sized businesses," she describes. "It's about ensuring that their work life is harmonious for them and then also helping their employees, or their consultants to offer them assistance to improve their work-life balance."

This change is going to make the difference in Becky's bottom line, too.

"You charge more [for coachingbecause you charge more], and you need to get one person to earn similar amounts of cash with those guides for $7 or even a course worth $200. You have to offer a lot more [courses and guides] which means I must have lots of people on my list because there is a small percentage who convert into things." Coaching clients are more likely to recommend others, which means even greater potential earnings for coaches down the line.

That said, Becky plans to continue providing her services to a wider audience even if they're not an ideal fit for her new , one-on one coaching.

"I'm still holding onto my venture as I've been doing it. It's Gutsy Boss. I'm also working to help both businesses and individuals," Becky explains. "I don't want to leave those other people in the dust. I've been working with individuals for some time and a lot of them are on my podcast, or they're on my email list."

In the spirit of helping those people, Becky has repurposed a lot of her existing material to create Gutsy Guides that help tackle particular issues like boundary-setting as well as making large-scale demands and getting over imposter syndrome.

"Generally the people who are in that category are mid-career professionals, and rather than doing lots of one-on one coaching sessions with them, I offer an abundance of information for them to help them self-coach on these things," she says.

If someone finds Becky's work, they fit in one of two categories:

Potential clients for coaching

Individuals who can benefit from Becky's self-guided mini-course , self-study program  as well as Gutsy guides , all hosted through

How can she determine which segment each potential client fits into?

Automated segmentation, automation and some inspiration taken from The Golden Girls.

Using automation, segmentation, and a fun quiz to match potential clients with the appropriate products

Becky is offering a quiz on her site: "Which business owner are you?" The six-question question (built with Interact ) tells visitors the Golden Girls-inspired business owner personas they match: Newbie (Rose), Flirt (Blanche), Pro (Dorothy), or Sage (Sophia).

Each persona represents a different level of ownership in a business, from first steps to experienced professional.

"To be precise, this is a more advanced opt-in to email," Becky cautions fellow creators. "I would not recommend starting with anything similar to this if you do not yet have an opt-in... It was my experience that I started by downloading a simple file. This is the simplest way to go."

When you're ready to categorize your customers opt-in with a more complicated such as Becky's test can help you do so. You can use that segmentation to automate the process of contacting them with offers tailored to their specific needs or level of expertise.

The email sequence is automated via ConvertKit, which means she won't need to waste valuable time sending the right products to the correct people.

"It takes place while I'm sleeping," she describes. "They're receiving the email newsletters as well, and should they decide to buy these books the price is very affordable. So it makes it a no-brainer, and it's a really easy system."

Becky knows that will grow with her business

The way Becky's business is evolving as well, and so has the method she employs .

Becky has added (and often deleted) different products as her business grew with digital downloads, additional training courses and group coaching.

In the moment Becky is getting ready to launch her 2023 Gutsy Accountability program, that includes group coaching, downloadable resources, coaching 1:1 with Becky, and/or live sessions, based on the type of program clients pick.

"I enjoy being able to do group coaching using since all the resources I'd like to share can be housed there. My clients can go to and get the items. I have the ability to make resources that I already own accessible to them. This is a lot less effort. They can also pay for it . There's no need to be concerned about anything."

The buy buttons that can be embedded and the checkout experience make it easy for clients to purchase products like Gutsy Accountability without leaving the website.

Through the course of her creation she has allowed Becky the ability to investigate these different product types and find what works best for her clients and herself.

"Almost every week, I have someone reach out to me and ask, 'I'm aware of the product the product you're using , tell me about it, that's something I'm always glad to do," she says.

"I believe it's beneficial for the public to know that you're able to create on the platform... There's everything you need here at a price you can afford."

Make your own decisions and develop your business in a way that's loyal to your values

Becky's last advice for creators is similar to the advice she advises her clients: Go with your gut.

"Listen to your intuition. A majority of those whom I consult... They have many doubts and don't have confidence, and then that creates a feeling of being stuck and they're feeling like they're not making any progress in their venture. And that's so demoralizing. And I remember that feeling," she says.

"In first place, trying to trust yourself is important to having any sort of success."

Becky's coaching company has grown significantly since the very first coaching course she started on in 2018. But her core and the soul in her teaching -- helping others release those "shoulds' -- remains steadfast. We're eager to find out where the next four-years (and beyond!) will lead Becky and her business.