I turned my spiritual coaching side hustle into a 6-figure career — here are the 3 tips I swear by that made me successful

• Sarah Negus is a spiritual coach who goes by title of the Modern Day Shaman. She combines shamanic techniques with modern psychology to help professionals better navigate the corporate world.
• In her 30s working as a property developer, Negus realized she wasn't feeling fulfilled in her career or personal life. After a meaningful encounter with a shaman in Peru, she opened her own pilates studio and later began offering spiritual coaching.
• Negus says it took several years for her to grow confident in the value she provides to clients and what she helps them achieve.
• This confidence empowered her to raise her prices and expand the spiritual coaching side hustle into a full-time career.

As a child, I always connected with the energy of other people and was considered the 'weird' kid at school because of my spiritual side.

In my late teens, I worked at an investment bank in a highly paid but highly stressful job, until I burnt out and ended up in hospital with a life-threatening throat abscess. I quit the rat race to focus on getting married and having my son, and later returned to work as a property developer.

In my 30s, I became increasingly unhappy once again, realizing that I didn't feel fulfilled in my life

It was at this time that I had a serendipitous encounter with a shaman in Peru — a woman who went on to become my spiritual teacher. I became her apprentice and spent several years training to become a shaman. At the same time, I trained as a pilates teacher and set up my own studio in the annex of my house, offering spiritual healing practices on the side.

After I broke my elbow in 2015, I was forced to close my pilates studio. At the time it felt like everything was over, but really it was the best thing that could have happened, because it meant I needed to stop viewing my spiritual coaching as a side hustle and start treating it as my full time career.

I shifted my mindset from being a pilates teacher who does spiritual healing on the side, to fully embracing my vocation as a shaman. This changed everything and people started coming to me to experience shamanic journeying, which in turn brought more and more referrals.

I've now worked as a spiritual healer since 2011 and adopted The Modern Day shaman title in 2014, providing spiritual guidance to clients across the world, blending modern psychology with therapeutic dialogue, shamanic journeying, and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), to help clients find a deeper meaning and purpose in their lives.

Here are three steps I took to grow my business to multiple six-figures.

1. I started viewing my side hustle as my full- time career

Today I charge anywhere from $790 for my six week online courses, to $9,500 for my 12 week 1-on-1 programs, or $34,000 for a year of 1-on-1 support as a private client. Instead of pricing by an hourly rate which directly corresponds to the amount of time I put aside for a client, I now price based on the value I provide to my clients. Because of this, my monthly revenue has increased over ten times compared to when I first started out.

I only take a maximum of 10 clients at a time, and currently have five year long commitments and the multiple shorter term clients. The six week online course is self study, and at the moment I sell between five and ten of these a month.

2. I stopped trading time for money

When I started my business, I decided to test the waters by offering free spiritual coaching sessions online.

Looking back, this was a disservice to myself. My work had value and meaning although I didn't recognize this at the time. Without knowing, I was hanging on to 'money stories' that weren't mine — ideas that the rich are not nice, or money was evil, or money was hard to come by, all things my family used to say and believe. My family, peers, and culture had taught me that what I was offering wasn't worth enough to put a price on.

When I began to believe in myself, I started to value my work and the price tag I put on it. I went from offering free sessions, to charging $65 per hour, which was much better, but I was still trading time for money. After a while I realized I would never be able to scale my business this way, because my time would always be capped. So I started offering programs and packages, and priced them based on the overall value the client was getting from having their life or business transformed.

The 12 week package initially cost around $2,000, and I raised it gradually to $9,500 as my confidence grew in the outcomes my clients were receiving, based on their feedback — usually a big uplift in productivity and turnover and profit in their business, life-changing decisions (like staying or leaving a marriage), as well as other intangibles like finding meaning and purpose.

3. I positioned myself as an expert within my field

In 2015, I launched myself as The Modern Day Shaman. I picked the title as a way to effectively describe what I do, while ensuring I stood out in the marketplace. Creating a personal brand was important to me as I knew that I needed to become visible and earn a reputation.

I wanted people to recognize that I wasn't just another spiritual healer, so I focused on my branding and content to truly show people who I was and create that emotional connection. I do regular speaking gigs and I invest time in creating content for my social media channels, including my YouTube channel, where I share tips, insight, and advice. I find that aside from word-of-mouth referrals, most of my clients find me via public speaking (online and on stage) and on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Creating and sharing valuable content through videos or blogs has meant that potential customers connect with me on a deeper level, and I've been able to use that to build the know, like and trust factor, which helps people buy from me more quickly and confidently.

Sarah Negus is the Modern Day Shaman®. She specializes in helping people in the corporate world operate more effectively by using shamanic techniques combined with modern psychology. Learn more on her website.