Personal development coach turns wellness into her work

We spend a lot of time at work - over 2,000 hours a year for those working full time. As a result, many struggle to maintain a healthy work/life balance. 

If you have ever questioned how to reconcile your career with wellness, you’re not alone. Meghan Barich, now a personal development coach, faced this crossroad in her own life a few years back. She not only overcame her struggles from burnout, but, in the process, also started a successful business based on her healing journey... This story has a happy ending after all!

Read on to learn how she turned the practice of wellness into her work and how Kajabi made it easier to run her online business.

Meghan’s online business journey: balancing work and wellness

Meghan started her career in sales, transitioned into working as a copywriter, and ultimately combined the two professions by working at advertising agencies. “I worked my way upward in agency life, and eventually lead the accounts teams,” she recalled. “All along, I was also doing my own healing work, and opening up to more of a spiritual path. Eventually, I started to feel a little splintered in my professional life and what I was experiencing in my healing life.”

She turned to a healthy coping mechanism to process these conflicting feelings - journaling. She said, “I used journaling as one of my core tools. It has just always been at the heart of who I am, since I could have a pen or a pencil in my hand. Journaling is a place where we can freely express ourselves, which is so hard to come by.”

In 2016, she brought the power of journaling to others with in-person workshops, but then transitioned to the online world in 2019. She said, “I know I had a lot to offer in teaching and helping folks recognize the path that they were on and to find their own healing.”

When Meghan began monetizing her journaling skills, she started with a drip campaign as her first digital product. She described, “It was a 90-day journaling prompt subscription via an email sequence.” 

Taking her side hustle full time 

Unfortunately, the imbalance between Meghan’s work and life caught up with her - and hard. She shared, “In February of 2021, I hit complete burnout. My doctor put me on leave from work. I never went back to my job.” 

Something was going to have to give. It was clear change was necessary so Meghan could restore balance to her work and  health. What did she do? She leaned into her knowledge commerce side hustle. She said, “I took the leap without having a clue what was going to happen. I didn't have a job, didn't know where I was going to live, or how I was going to survive.”

She did what any new business owner would do. She got to work planning and seeking out resources to help her take her business full time. She said, “I figured out my financial runway. Even in the midst of a lot of financial fear, I jumped into a coaching container with someone I had known for quite some time that was a coach. I knew she would help me bridge into that.”

From there, she was inspired to iterate on the format of her knowledge product. She recounted, “When I got into the coaching container, I opened up a journaling community. There was a lot absent from the 90-day journaling email sequence that wasn't fulfilling for me and likely for those subscribers as well.”

Making the switch to Kajabi

But just a few months after she became a full-time entrepreneur, Meghan found she was spending a disproportionate amount of time on the technical side of her business. 

“As a solopreneur, I was overwhelmed by all of the technology,” she recalled. “I would get so focused on technology, I couldn't find space to really hone in on what I was trying to communicate. I wanted to figure out how to automate and get repeatable systems so that I could just focus on the content and connection with folks.”

So, when Kajabi announced the promotional offer of three months of Kajabi for $99 in July of 2021, she jumped at the chance to migrate her business.  

At the start of her business, she was stringing together a handful of tech tools. She was using four separate tools for her email marketing, website, payment processor, and learning management system. “One of my mentors showed me Kajabi years prior to when I signed up, but I just wasn’t ready,” she remembered. 

“My goal was to simplify and to reduce expenses because I was a brand new business,” she said. “I thought, what harm really is there, since I have those 90 days to dig in?”

What did she do first in Kajabi?

“The first thing that I did was rebuild my journaling community,” she described. “Then, I started working on some coaching programs and created coaching offers. Third, I imported my contacts from ActiveCampaign and  moved my entire website as well. That was the big lift because I moved my whole domain.”

During the remainder of her promotional period, Meghan shared, “I started to get in the weeds and really manage my own backend and figure out how to create offers and how to mess up coupons. I learned a lot by messing up and having a lot of chats with the lovely customer support team at Kajabi!” We can relate to messing up too, Meghan!

Meghan fully switched to Kajabi after the promotional period ended, and now, she’s loving using an all-in-one tool to run her business. She said, “I love having the financials integrated in the same place. Being able to see all my sales and the payment processing in one place is really important to me.”

Her favorite feature? The coaching tool. She said, “The coaching program in Kajabi helps me organize and keep track of the work and the transformation that my clients are going through by having us in a shared space - and it’s a very user-friendly experience for them.”

Now, she’s exploring other opportunities within the Kajabi platform. About a year after Meghan signed up for Kajabi, she’s launching her first online course, Conflict Resolution for People Pleasers. “It’s an eight week live course with pre-recorded content and live calls each week. I have an awesome landing page, multiple offers going, and am getting ready to start using affiliates to promote the course. Hopefully from there, we'll see what I have, then what could become an evergreen course from the material.” 

What Meghan recommends for new Heroes 

Reflecting on her journey, Meghan has some recommendations for knowledge creators just getting started monetizing online. 

First, focus on intention. She recommended, “Think about why [you] are creating [your] space. Then create and iterate.”

Second, be willing to overcome perfectionism. She advised,

“Be willing to not have it perfect the first couple times, especially with one-on-one coaching. I was really honest and transparent with my clients and said, ‘Hey, I'm trying to create a new space that is really beneficial for both of us and there might be some kinks along the way.’ I got really positive feedback from my clients when I used Kajabi coaching for scheduling for their one-on-one sessions.”

She’s also got tips for getting started with Kajabi. She said, “Get familiar with the automations and how things get connected. Click on every button and focus on testing. Explore the functionality and be willing to make some messy mistakes.”

What did she use to get started? The Official Kajabi Hero Community! She realized, “Maybe something I'm trying to do has already been done in the Facebook group. If other people are asking those questions, then this is good information. So that was also such a great resource!” 

Getting started on Kajabi

After years of side hustling and running her business with a string of tech tools, Meghan made the leap to running her business full time and using Kajabi as her all-in-one business tool. Today, Meghan’s proud of where she is as a business owner. 

She reflected, “I've finally come into this space where I really feel confident in launching into a niche and presenting myself to the world in a way that I know resonates with the needs of my audience. And I know that Kajabi is the platform to help me communicate all of it.”

If you’re ready to reduce stress and tech headaches by starting with or migrating to an all-in-one platform like Meghan, Kajabi is the tool for you.

With Kajabi, you can sell your expertise online. You’ll get an online course builder, coaching platform, podcast tool, and membership management software. Plus, we pair it with sales and marketing tools like a website and email marketing platform and insightful analytics. All for one low cost.

For 14 days, fully explore everything Kajabi has to offer you for free! Start your free 14-day trial of Kajabi today.

For more inspiration, check out these other successful Heroes' stories who jumped on the opportunity to try Kajabi at a discounted price:

First-time course creator goes from zero to Hero with single mini-course

Time management coach launches membership with private podcast on Kajabi

Still researching?

Check out Kajabi’s free downloadable ebook resources and attend free Kajabi webinars Monday - Friday to answer your questions about Kajabi's capabilities.

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Read more Hero stories:

‍Teacher-turned-entrepreneur coaches educators with the help of Kajabi
Triathlete’s knowledge commerce journey goes from coaching to courses to membership community