Stop Hiding: Mastering Visibility & Messaging as a Coach

If you've ever felt like you're invisible in your coaching business—even though you’re showing up, posting content, and doing all the things—you're not alone. In fact, one of the most common struggles I see in the coaching industry is this:

👉 Brilliant coaches who don’t know how to talk about what they do in a way that actually connects.

In this week’s episode of The Amanda Kaufman Show, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with my longtime friend and fellow coach-turned-copywriter, JJ Carolan. JJ is someone I’ve admired for years—not just because she’s got the heart of a servant leader (and a solid jab-cross combo), but because she has a rare gift: she teaches coaches how to find their voice, own their message, and communicate like leaders.

This conversation was full of “a-ha” moments, real talk, and practical takeaways. So let’s unpack it.

Why Most Coaches Struggle with Copy

JJ and I kicked things off by talking about the uncomfortable truth most coaches face: we're amazing in a 1:1 session, but when it comes to communicating what we do out in the world—on social media, on our websites, in our offers—we freeze.

Why? Because we’re trying to sound like someone else. We’re using “coach speak.” We’re playing it safe.

JJ said it best:

“Nobody cares about your process. They care about the outcome. They care about the moment they’re having in their real life.”

And she’s right. While we’re over here writing about “limiting beliefs” and “nervous system regulation,” our ideal client is just trying not to scream at their kids or survive another anxiety spiral. They’re not googling “transformational coaching.” They’re googling “how to stop fighting with my spouse” or “why do I feel stuck at work?”

This is where messaging often breaks down.

The 5 Shifts That Make Copy Convert

Midway through the conversation, JJ shared her go-to framework: five key shifts that help coaches write better copy—without needing a marketing degree or fancy funnel.

1. Ditch the Coach Jargon

You may love talking about “empowerment,” “alignment,” or “rewriting stories”… but your client probably doesn’t. JJ reminds us to take off our coach goggles and write from the perspective of the real-life person on the other side of the screen. Speak to their experience in their language.

2. Lead with Outcomes, Not the Process

Coaches get really excited about explaining their methodology. But your audience doesn’t want to know how it works—they want to know if it works. What will their life look like after working with you? How will things be different? Focus your copy on those transformations.

3. Show Up Fully—Even in Your Copy

JJ dropped a truth bomb here: most of us shrink when we write. Even the most energetic, bubbly coaches lose 80% of their presence when they shift from speaking to typing. Her advice? Bring your actual voice into your copy. Use the nicknames, the quips, the tone that’s uniquely you. You cannot shine too much.

4. Keep It Simple and Clear

“Confused minds say no.”
If your content has too many calls to action, or your website is filled with long blocks of text, people will tune out. JJ recommends: one call to action per page, short punchy paragraphs, lots of white space, and easy next steps. Clarity = conversion.

5. Own Your Expertise

This one hit hard. So many new (and even experienced) coaches soften their language: “I might be able to help,” “You could learn to…” JJ challenges us to stop hiding and start showing up like leaders. Don’t downplay what you bring to the table. You’re not new—you’re just bringing your years of life, work, and leadership into a new format.

It’s Not About Being Loud—It’s About Being Clear

One of my favorite parts of our conversation was when we talked about visibility. Because for a lot of coaches, it’s not just a copywriting problem—it’s a confidence problem.

We don’t want to be salesy. We don’t want to be judged. We’re afraid of being “too much.”

But JJ reframed it beautifully:

“When you become a solopreneur, you become your brand. And your clients need to know, love, and trust YOU. That only happens when you’re visible.”

Being visible doesn’t mean posting 5 times a day. It means having a clear message. Speaking from your heart. And inviting people into a transformation you deeply believe in.

Final Thoughts: Show Up. Speak Clearly. Lead Boldly.

There’s a reason this episode flew by—it was full of gold. But if I had to sum it up, here’s the message:

🟡 You don’t need better tech. You need better messaging.
🟡 You don’t need to say more. You need to say it more clearly.
🟡 You don’t need to fake confidence. You need to own the leader you already are.

Whether you’re launching your coaching business or scaling your offers, copywriting isn’t just a skill—it’s an act of leadership. It’s how you show up for the people you’re here to serve.

So let’s stop hiding. Let’s stop trying to sound “professional” and start sounding real. Because real is what resonates.

Chapters List

00:00 Introduction to Coaching and Copywriting

03:20 The Journey to Copywriting for Coaches

06:04 Overcoming Hesitations in Marketing and Copywriting

08:53 Key Elements of Effective Copywriting

11:48 Understanding Client Outcomes

14:34 Embracing Personality in Copy

17:28 The Importance of Clarity and Leadership in Copy

Full Transcript

JJ Carolan (00:00)

take off your coach goggles, put on your what is my client going through goggles and write from that perspective.

Amanda Kaufman (00:24)

Well, hey, hey, welcome back to the Amanda Kaufman show. And today I am joined by a Facebook bestie that we've been friends on Facebook for too long to count. We both have the same certification. I think that's kind of our initial connection came from that first coaching certification that I got. She has the same one.

And you know, I've just been such a fan of JJ Carolyn for years because not only is she a super badass, she loves to, I think it's boxing, right? Or MMA, you're doing something crazy. But she also has this incredible heart to serve. She's served as a coach to so many, but then she realized in our coaching space, sometimes as coaches, we're really good one-on-one.

but we have a hard time articulating the value of the coaching experience. And so JJ became a incredible copywriter. She did the work to figure out how to communicate super effectively, one to many, through copywriting. And she turned around and started teaching coaches how to do the same thing. So I had to have her here on the show. JJ, welcome.

JJ Carolan (01:36)

Thank you. Thank you. That's an incredible intro. feel really good about myself right now. Thank you.

Amanda Kaufman (01:40)

Good, good,

I love that. Well, and I'm so curious, JJ, what keyed you onto the focus of copywriting for coaches? What led you to that? What was the inciting incident?

JJ Carolan (01:53)

So my, my, my teenager calls it the canon moment when I was sitting there and I realized I really couldn't operate in my former career anymore. Like it was killing me. was literally killing me. Hospitalization killing me. And I was like, have to make this side, side hustle thing work. I have to, I have to. And I had done all the things I had done a freebie and a leap, a email list and the website and nothing was really working.

Amanda Kaufman (02:06)

Mm.

JJ Carolan (02:22)

And so this is by the way, over a decade ago. I'm like researching and researching and I found this little copy school run by this woman named Stella Orange. And I took all her free stuff, of course, the webinar, the free class, whatever, and her entry level thing and revamped same business model, revamped all the words according to what she taught. And then everything finally picked up. I was finally able to leave my job. So it was really sheer desperation to find that.

key that was going to make everything turn and finally work.

Amanda Kaufman (02:54)

That's so good, so good. You know, I've worked with coaches on business coaching and strategy for the last about six years out of my eight years doing this. And one of the things I always ask coaches is like, well, what do you think makes a really amazing coach? And the number one thing that they say is the ability to listen. The ability to listen. And what's so interesting is from a business perspective,

We need to yes, listen, but I think the capacity to reflect out and to speak effectively with the right words, the right specificity of language of exactly what we mean and to do so in a way that's honoring the way that others want to listen to us, that is the magic that makes somebody go from like just a really great coach to somebody who is great with a coaching business. So it makes perfect sense what you're saying to me.

that you needed a little bit of guidance there. I'm curious, in your experience, do you think is the major reason why a lot of coaches are so hesitant to learn copywriting and learn marketing and sales skills, to learn to speak more effectively to be able to advocate for their business? What do you think's behind that?

JJ Carolan (04:08)

I love that question and I've been noodling on it myself because I think the word copy implies something that some other expert does and knows and has to go to study under Joanna Wiebe and get this big thing and same with marketing, same with all of those things. I think they feel intimidating because you get your certification, you want to help people. And I think many coaches, if they could just hand out the marketing and copy off to someone, they would do it, right? But in the beginning, you really, it's like,

Amanda Kaufman (04:28)

Mm-hmm.

JJ Carolan (04:36)

you're trying to bootstrap your way through. So I think it's intimidating and I think it just feels like something that somebody else knows about. And now it's a whole other thing you have to learn.

Amanda Kaufman (04:44)

Totally.

Yeah, you know, I also do high performance coaching and it attracts a lot of people who've been pretty successful in another career and now they want to become a coach. And I see that hesitancy because they start to recognize and realize, my old company did all the marketing. My old company did all the sales. was this cog in the machine, like way back there. You couldn't even see me in the operation. And now here I am front and center.

And it is so uncomfortable to feel unsuccessful in promoting your business and attracting people. I think the other thing that I hear a lot is, I just want people to find me and hire me. I just want that. So can you walk us through how does excellence in copy or learning how to be at least competent in copywriting?

JJ Carolan (05:16)

Yes.

Yes.

Amen. ⁓

Amanda Kaufman (05:38)

How does that actually shift the business experience for our coach?

JJ Carolan (05:42)

think you hit the nail on the head too when you said people are often used to being behind the scenes and now here you are in this like bleeding vulnerable state saying, know, I was an HR manager and now I'm a coach and Aunt Millie is judging you and you're the front face of your business now where you used to be not the front face of the corporate experience or maybe you worked as like I did in education but.

Amanda Kaufman (05:54)

Yeah, yeah.

JJ Carolan (06:04)

you're not your brand until you become a solopreneur, right? And then all of a sudden you are your brand. And I think that's also a piece of the whole why people don't really want to embrace copy and marketing out of the gate. So I like that you said that because it does acknowledge that.

Amanda Kaufman (06:19)

Mm-hmm.

JJ Carolan (06:24)

scared to be up front piece, even though we really do want to just say, people find me and then now I'm hired. I think that marketing and something you do so beautifully too is like marketing and copy and all of those things really don't need to be intimidating, especially when you're in a scaled down, starting out place. Like nobody needs to know everything there is to know about copy.

Copywriting because a lot of that is for software companies or Verizon or you know If you're a solopreneur you need to know five things about copy and you're good to go, right? And so that's really doesn't need to be intimidating experience I think support in the visibility piece like what you provide in all of all of your many gifts that you do one of them being that Courage to become visible. So important having support for that not trying to go it alone all those things

Amanda Kaufman (07:13)

Yeah,

I love that. All right, well, you opened a big old loop. Like, well, what are the five things? Like, you know, if we could just inject that into somebody's at least awareness and maybe they could start practicing those five things or maybe they run into chat GBT and get a little bit of an expanded definition, like what are the five things that you feel are super important for a coach?

JJ Carolan (07:39)

I would love to share that. I think the first one, and I think you and I are very aligned on this, we talk about it a lot, is replacing coach jargon with the language of your audience or the people you want to work with. So we come out of coaching school.

Amanda Kaufman (07:50)

Hoo!

JJ Carolan (07:57)

and we've been coached and we've peer coached and we've done some pro bono, maybe we're coaching a little, and we get really psyched about all of the language used in whichever program you went through. And we wanna use that language like.

Amanda Kaufman (08:06)

Mm-hmm.

JJ Carolan (08:10)

things like empowered you to X, Y, Z a thing or nervous system regulation or like all this stuff. But your person is out there going, if I yell at my kids one more time, I swear to God, I'm gonna get in my car and I'm gonna drive all the way to South Dakota and I'm live there forever because everyone's better off, right? They're having moments of frustration and upset that have nothing to do with regulating their nervous system from their perspective. So the very first thing to me in writing great copies

is just that always putting on like take off your coach goggles, put on your what is my client through going through goggles and write from that perspective.

If you do nothing else and you turn this podcast off right now you're now a great copywriter. Congratulations.

Amanda Kaufman (08:53)

love this. I love this. I love this so much. You you just reminded me of the first time that I realized not everyone has seen Star Wars. You know, I was on a webinar and I'm like riffing as I do and I'm extemporaneously sharing and I said, know, like Obi-Wan, Kenobi and Star Wars.

JJ Carolan (09:02)

Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (09:15)

And then, thank goodness, was just a small webinar. There were faces on the screen, and I could just see that there were a handful of people where their face kind of contorted, because they didn't know who Obi-Wan Kenobi was. And I'm so glad I caught that confused look, because when I asked them, was like, who here has seen Star Wars? And only 2 thirds of the room had actually seen the movie. And.

JJ Carolan (09:39)

you

Amanda Kaufman (09:41)

That blew my mind because I grew up with Star Wars. Star Wars was like a huge piece of our family history, but it was a big lesson. And don't assume that people understand what you're talking about. Even if it's a big pop culture reference, you'd be so surprised how many people have a very different experience to your own. And so yeah, I love that. What's the second one? What's the next one?

JJ Carolan (10:05)

Hilarious also alarming that that many people haven't seen Star Wars But I have made Harry Potter references where I'm like, all those non coach muggles out there and it got in the same like I'm like, okay. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry read the books saw the movies The second one is the other thing we get really eager to do is describe the coaching process

Amanda Kaufman (10:10)

It's crazy.

With a muggle. Yeah.

JJ Carolan (10:26)

Like talk about things like limiting beliefs and rewriting your stories and rewiring your this and that. And we really love to talk about the process because the process is awesome and nobody cares about the process. And a very unfortunate example of this is the weight loss industry. Like the things people will do just for the promise of drop 20 pounds by summer season. They will stand on their head. They will drink bone broth out of a cup while standing on their head. They will make noise like an alligator. It doesn't matter what they're told to do, right? They just want the outcome.

Amanda Kaufman (10:46)

Mm-hmm.

JJ Carolan (10:55)

And the same, it's a terrible example because unfortunately it's a very damaging industry, but the same goes for coaching. People really don't care about busting through their limiting beliefs or breakthrough laser coaching or any of the process. We care because it's awesome, right? And it's really cool. And when you get to a level with people, then you're going to educate them what it might look like. But out of the gate.

Amanda Kaufman (10:55)

Mm-hmm.

Totally. ⁓

JJ Carolan (11:16)

you definitely want to

stick to the outcomes that people are really caring about in the moments of their lives they care about it the most. So even if you're working, for example, with someone who you're focusing on the career, the outcome they care about might be behind the closed doors of their home. Right. So you have to really do that research and know the outcomes that people are looking for, which does bring up for coaches, like we can't promise outcomes and there is language around like.

Amanda Kaufman (11:31)

So good.

That's so good.

JJ Carolan (11:40)

working with that, saying things my clients have experienced or things you may experience or imagine if your life looked like this. We don't have to say, guarantee you're getting a promotion this year.

Amanda Kaufman (11:48)

A thousand percent. And I mean, I think the thing that we're really guaranteeing anyway is the process, the container, the relationship. Like there's so many things that you can be very comfortable promising ⁓ without promising a result. Yeah, that's so good.

JJ Carolan (11:59)

Yeah.

Yes,

yes, completely true. I agree with that.

Amanda Kaufman (12:06)

Cool, so what's thing number three?

JJ Carolan (12:08)

Okay, I number three is the mistake that we can fix so easily is playing it safe and small. So on the internet or in your copy or even if it's a brochure, we lose 80 % of our communication, which is our nonverbals. So even if you are a big, bold personality and you're writing...

you're shrinking by no fault of your own because you're losing your this stuff and your facial expressions and you maybe you speak loud or you have a fast talking cadence like some of us. So you want to ask your friends and even maybe clients you've worked with but basically your friends and your family that love you what

Do they know most about you in terms of your nonverbals, how you speak, phrases you use, nicknames? Do you call everybody sis? Do call everybody babe? Do you call everybody honey? Like what do you do in your real life that you can now take and make part of your signature brand in your copy? So on websites, I love finding out how people call their friends and family because then we're going to use that in the headlines and then immediately you're creating a connection with things like that that aren't that really hard to do if you're just going with like

great writing what you think people want or agitating pain points. So making sure that personality, you can't go big enough on when you're writing because it's so it's literally two dimensional. So you have to bring the 3d. And that means really just knowing your personality, your values, your brand voice and leaning into as hard as you desire, like you can't shine enough, you can't shine enough.

Amanda Kaufman (13:35)

You can't shine enough. I love that. When

I first started as an entrepreneur and a coach, I had come out of the enculturation of corporate speak. So it was all about absolute brevity, complete ⁓ grammar accuracy, and

JJ Carolan (13:49)

YAS

Amanda Kaufman (13:53)

Executive communication is different.

than copy communication. And I learned that very, very quickly. And I'm thinking about like, well, what do I do in my copy? And I'm like, well, I say the word dang a lot. And that's not something that a lot of people do. I make jokes. I use GIFs, which is not strictly the copy. It's more the design of what I'm doing. But I make a lot of quips. yeah, so that's good to bring awareness to. ⁓

JJ Carolan (14:04)

Yes.

Yes, you're

a great example of personality in copy. You are a great writer.

Amanda Kaufman (14:28)

Thank you. I received that. Thank you so much. Okay, four. What's the fourth thing? We've got to bring this home for sure.

JJ Carolan (14:34)

Four, confused minds say no. So don't confuse people. Instead, you wanna keep things, and this is a place where I do love chat GPT, because you can take your whole thing that you wrote and then put it in chat GPT and say, do not change my actual words and phrases, but please get this down to 200 words or.

500 words and it can make it less confusing cut out the fluff but still keep you what you want in it but things like One call to action which we have just briefly touched upon ourselves like one call to action per page So if you're writing a home page and you're like learn about me go check out my service also register for the thing Did you know I have a lead magnet people are like, I just don't know I'll do it later

and then they don't. So you want to keep things simple, easy to read, keep large blocks of text, like paragraphs have no place online. We don't want big paragraphs, just muddles things. So when you look at your copy visually,

Is it easy to digest for people? Because you know all this stuff, but they are just coming to it. So we want a lot of white space. We want it to be digestible and we want to make it more invitational. Just one call to action, please. Like one thing to do. One thing to do. Yes. And on the flip side, make sure you have one thing to do. So.

Amanda Kaufman (15:51)

One thing to do at a time. Yeah.

JJ Carolan (15:56)

I do see social media posts and they're beautiful and then they leave the audience hanging. There's nothing to do. There's no hand holding. So as coaches, I feel like we do have a responsibility to be like, hey, I wrote this piece of content. I see you. I love you. I hear you. I know what you're going through. Come over here next. Like do this next thing in support of what you want versus like, okay, great. You read my post. Have a great day.

Amanda Kaufman (16:20)

Super, yeah. And I think this is a really good place to also acknowledge what's the channel that you're writing in, right? If you're doing a landing page, it should have a big old button, probably a few times, that are driving to one single action as a result of reading that communication. On social media,

JJ Carolan (16:29)

Yes.

Amanda Kaufman (16:41)

It's really interesting because I would have said back in 2017 make sure you put a CTA on every social post in 2025 I that's not the recommendation I offer most of the time because most of your posts should be social like they should be just Just like you would post for your friends and your fam jam But then when it comes to those promotional moments or those launches or those things that you're doing then yeah, like make it really clear what that next step is and

you know, pull it off of social, but I almost, I would say that generally it's an 80-20, where, you know, 80 % of the time you're not, because the quality of the content, the content's gotten so saturated, you want the quality of the content to be so damn good that people can't help but follow you.

Right? So that when you do put the ask into the feed, you're more likely to get the uptake because people already quote unquote love you and love your content.

JJ Carolan (17:38)

Yes, yes, we want them to love

us. They have to definitely, with helping industries, they have to know, love, and trust us. Like, is that enough? They have to leave their firstborn children with us? Like, really?

Amanda Kaufman (17:47)

Yeah, exactly.

It is such a trust, a trust intensive thing. It's not just transactional. All right, what's the fifth thing?

JJ Carolan (17:52)

Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

The fifth thing is, if I just get on a soap box for a second, like own it. Own what you can do. Own what you can do as a coach. Because a lot of times when I'm like writing for a coach, they are...

coming into their own as an entrepreneur and they're forgetting they have this incredible history as a human being, as a professional, as a role in their family, and they feel like there's this line of demarcation where now they're new.

But you're not new, you're adding coaching to this amazing history that you already have. And the way that translates into copy is people will use really weak words, they don't take leadership in their copy. So in their websites or in their social media, they'll say things like, may learn, or I can help you. You're not helping. Helping is for books and podcasts, right? Like helping is not the strongest word we could use here, you are coaching.

It's a whole different thing than helping. And people believe they can be helped by themselves, by their friends, by their mama, like by a bottle of wine, right? There's a lot of help out there.

Amanda Kaufman (18:50)

So good.

JJ Carolan (18:58)

I think in copy and you go back and you read, am I, am I saying like, if you take my one-to-one coaching program, you're going to learn stuff or you're going to implement and master it without fail, right? People can learn from a book. So the last piece is just look over your copy and be like, would I engage with this person or do they sound like they're not so sure of what they're doing? It's okay to claim your gifts right out of the gate because you're an awesome person who is now also a coach. So make sure those.

Amanda Kaufman (19:26)

That's so good.

JJ Carolan (19:28)

words like might and may and could.

Yes, and will and you can like we got to provide leadership and encouragement. It is a like a scary world out there right now. And I feel like our job as coaches is to shine that light as brightly and strongly as possible. Like you will not hit the rocks. Come over here. Like a lighthouse that shines weekly. Not so helpful. ⁓

Amanda Kaufman (19:51)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love this.

love this. I keep talking about leadership and coaching lately and I'm just, I get excited when somebody else does the same thing. ⁓ So JJ, what is the best way for people to follow you?

JJ Carolan (19:56)

Yeah.

Yeah.

The best way to follow me and my dog and my kids and my hot mess of a life is on Instagram and my handle is jjcarolynwrites. It's two J's in a row, J-J. No special spelling, jjcarolynwrites. And over there is where pretty much everything lands first, including like me ranting about copy and everything.

Amanda Kaufman (20:26)

So good.

Well, JJ, thank you so much for joining us on the show.

JJ Carolan (20:30)

Thank you for having me, this was super fun and flew by really fast.

Amanda Kaufman (20:34)

I know,

I know. Dear listener, don't forget to subscribe so that you don't miss another episode. And JJ showed up with her framework today.

If you could take 30 seconds to leave an honest review, honestly, those fives help a lot because if we get five stars, then people are more likely to listen to the podcast and make this choice when they're out on their walk or on their commute or however they love to listen to podcasts. And thinking of which, if you've got a friend who perhaps has been struggling with embodying their full power in their copy or just even knowing that copywriting is their next big move, go ahead and grab the link to this episode.

and text it to them. Text it to three of your friends. All right, I'll see you on the next episode and until then, make sure you do what matters.