6 Steps to Build a $100K+ Resume Writing + Career Coach Biz

Do you want to build a 6-figure business out of your resume writing or career coaching skill set?

Breaking that annual $100,000 point is a key goal I’ve been hearing for over 25 years from the majority of resume writers and career coaches I meet.

So what exactly does it take?

After crossing that barrier myself by 1997 to build a 6-figure business as a resume writer and career coach, and through helping hundreds of resume writers and career coaches to do so as well, I’ve identified six key steps that will accelerate the path for you.

I’m sharing those steps in my 8-minute tip video below.

These cornerstone steps to build your 6-figure business include:

Have a structured consult that moves prospects from their DIY mentality and away from “it’s a luxury I can’t afford” to embracing it as an absolute necessity, despite 3-4 figure prices.
Offer packages and complete solutions instead of selling just what the job seeker asks for (they don’t know what they need).
Develop evergreen services and group programs to keep your revenue running and off the dollars for hours hamster wheel.
Collect testimonials at the optimum time to ensure they have ROI to pre-sell you to prospects. (Fluff statements about confidence and quality DO NOT work).
Earn industry certifications and awards to create overnight success and value perception.
Learn to value your services and charge what they are worth instead of what you perceive a job seeker can pay.

You CAN have a 6-figure business as a resume writer or career coach!

Watch the video now (includes subtitles):

Correction in video: When I refer to $1500 sales to all levels of clients in 2007, this is incorrect. This was way back in 1997!

Read the Video Transcript

Transcript has been adjusted to reflect correct year of 1997 where I originally, and incorrectly, said 2007 in the video.

I get asked all the time, “How can I build a six-figure-plus career industry practice <as a resume writer or career coach>?”

Today I’m going to share with you six of the ways that I know work the best.

The first one is you have to have a structured consult. You can’t assume that clients are going to find you, be impressed by your credentials and accomplishments, and just hand over their money. Yes, we do see it happen; I will talk about that in a second. But for most of us it is necessary to have a process — no assumptions — you have to be able to sell yourself.

So I’m all about three steps of edu-fearacating your clients to help them understand the gap your services fill, because a lot of the time they’re seeing resume writing as DIY; they’re seeing career coaching as a luxury and not something that’s going to help them build their career or something they can’t do themselves.

So really really critical: You have a process! In CDI I share my six-figure script which has helped hundreds of resume writers and career coaches to capitalize on it and close those four and five figure sales.

The next thing that’s really big is you have to sell packages. Absolutely 100% don’t assume clients are going to come to you and say, “Oh yes, I need all these things. I want this particular package.”

They’re going to come to you with whatever their gateway drug is. Is that a resume? Is that an interview strategy session?

It’s important for you to evaluate their needs and help put them into the solution that’s going to fit them.

Packages serve you and they serve them. When you sell a package you make more per client, but you also give your clients the services they probably didn’t know they needed but absolutely do. So we’re talking things like LinkedIn profiles, reference pages, follow up letters, cover letters, strategy sessions for how to interview or how to job search in the hidden job market; stuff like that.

Obviously if you don’t offer some of the skills yourself you can partner with other CDI companies to offer that full suite of services. But bottom line you, can never build a six-figure business as a entrepreneur single operating entity unless you have packages. It’s just way too hard!

The next thing is your packages have to have evergreen services in them. Evergreen is typically known as making money while you sleep — having a product that you can repeatedly roll out.

For example in CDI we have done-for-you tip sheets you can include; we have a job search tip book you can include… You can put dollar values on these even though you’re receiving them free as part of your membership. But likely you also have expertise you’ve been giving away and it’s time to capitalize on that and package it as knowledge-based services.

I am really a fan of doing group educational sessions; so basically that baseline information everybody needs to know on how to job search and interview. I do it as a group once a month. Then I can sell it at a small price point for my clients of a few hundred dollars. They got a deal and I only had to do it once. I walk away with $3000-$4000 for one session instead of having to do it over and over again with each client.

The beauty of that is you can specifically make it evergreen by recording it and then offering the recording. You’re hands off except for you or your VA giving your clients access to that recording. Super awesome! So think about ways you you can take knowledge you’re giving away now and package that into something that has a dollar value on it in your package.

The next thing is testimonials. All the time I see websites that have testimonials, and LinkedIn profiles that have testimonials, that talk about how much more confident people feel with their new resume or their coaching.

You’re getting your testimonials at the wrong time.

It’s absolutely critical that you ask for testimonials from clients after they land a job. So in CDI I have an entire lesson and a downloadable template to help walk you through how you educate your clients when they’re going out into their job search to track information. You give it ROI for them to understand where they are in the process and how it’s going for them. You teach them how to get back to you with their juicy testimonials that are going to specifically spell out how many resumes they sent, how many interviews they had, how many offers they had, what they loved about your service, etc.

Those are powerful. Those will sell for you on your website!

Next item: certifications and awards. OK, you can become very successful without certifications and awards.

But why would you want to fight an uphill battle?

Certainly if you have partnerships or media relationships you might not need to do this. But the majority of us, it certainly cuts the legwork in half.

First of all certifications and awards both build believe-ability with your prospects. These are third-party endorsements of your expertise and focus on being quality driven.

Also with our CDI TORI awards, the Toast of the Resume Industry, we have seen people double their business just based on getting a nomination. We have so many testimonials at CDI on resume writers who grew their business and have had to do nothing else. So it’s a no brainer to get a Certified Advanced Resume Writer credential. Get a Certified Executive Resume Master credential if you specialize in executives.

The bottom line is: Get certified. Look into the TORI awards. See how you can grow your business that way.

Then finally, charge what you’re worth. This is a big mistake I see a lot of people making in that they are scared to charge what they are worth. They’re using a sliding scale based on what they see (what they think and what they perceive) a job seeker can afford.

That’s a mistake!

It’s absolutely critical that you are valuing your services. If you look around, services in our industry range from (yes, some are charging $40 and $50 an hour) but professional high-end services are getting $150-$500 an hour for the services that they provide.

There is a niche for every level and you don’t have to be working with all high-dollar clients to accomplish this. I always like to stress that using my methodology, that I share through CDI, I was closing $1200-$1500 sales with new grads, retail… and it’s important to know that that’s not in 2019; that’s in 1997 or earlier. I’m fuzzy on my years. But it was definitely mid-to-late 90s.

Anyway, my point is is that if I could close a new graduate on a $1500 package in 1997, you can definitely close someone at any level on that if you have a process in place.

So use these elements: the packaging, the edu-fearacating consultation, the certifications and awards. All these pieces I’ve talked about will come together to help you to brilliantly build a six-figure-plus resume writing, career coaching, and career services business. At CDI we have all these resources; they’re done for you.

I want you to stop wasting time and energy in this dream you’re going after. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. It is all here at CDI. So come on over.

You can look at our blog. I have a whole bunch of video tips there. Then check out our join page because we have monthly and annual options to help you fly higher. So I’ll see you in CDI!

Here’s to building a 6-figure business as a resume writer and/or career coach!