Sarah Jones graduated college in 2007 planning to be an artist.
"One day I had a big art show and started thinking about what's the end of the road with this art thing," the 29-year-old says. "The pinnacle is being really well known and winning awards, and I was like, 'I don't really care about that' — what I really cared about was making a difference in peoples' lives. That was way more exciting and appealing to me."
So she went out and hired a life coach for $400 a month, who helped her figure out what she wanted to do next: She wanted to become a coach herself.
Jones finished training as a life coach in the summer of 2013, and started working as in Los Angeles with mentor and coach Adam Gilad. She then moved to San Francisco, and in 2014, she decided she would branch out and start her own company, Introverted Alpha, which helps "smart, introverted men become benevolent badasses and attract women naturally."
"When I was working with [Adam], I found that linear, logical men were my very favorite to coach," she says. "I realized most of the men in my life have been that way: my dad, my boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend, my brother, and most of my clients are all the engineering types. They're just a pleasure to coach because I'd been around them and loved them so much in my personal life that I think it flowed into the coaching."
After completing Ramit Sethi's Zero to Launch program in early 2014, Jones launched her business that summer. For the first few months, business was slow as she kept her job with Gilad and used her salary to stay afloat. "I think I made a sale or two in August, and in September I don't know if I had any sales. It was very stressful and scary," she says.
In October she brought in a few thousand, and November was when things started picking up. "I made about $10,000 that month," Jones says. "After that, I knew what I did to get to that point and I knew I could repeat it — and I have." She credits her improvement in branding, positioning, and marketing to the book "Convert: The Simple Little Formula That Sold $50 Million Worth of Products & Services Online," by Frank Kern, as well as to her friend Lauren Anderson of Moonshot.us, and to Sethi's course.
Now, her months range from $5,000 to $20,000, and the average since November has been about $10,000 a month.
Jones works one on one with her clients, who at this point have all been heterosexual men looking to have relationships with women. "My clients are usually guys in their late 20s," she says. "Most of my clients are very good looking and social, but they have built up all this tension around this one thing, and they don't want to be creepy and weird."
"I even made a program called First Touch to First Kiss because my clients loved the ten-step sequence," Jones says. "Once everything is broken down in that logical way, the same way their minds work, they can do it. I just demystify the process."
After a client applies to work with her, Jones evaluates their applications and accepts only clients who she feels largely have their careers and health in order, and are ready to turn their attention to dating — roughly 40% of applicants.
In the initial complimentary strategy session, she asks them details about their situation and what they want.
"In the ebook I wrote, there's an exercise for finding your deepest values, and I come up for a plan for them based on how much work there is to do to take them from current situation to where they want to get to, which is pretty much the same thing for most clients: dating great women regularly so they can find the right woman for them," she says.
Clients have three options to work with Jones: 20 sessions for $9,400 or $7,200 upfront; 10 sessions for $4,800 or $3,700 upfront (her most popular option); or five sessions for $2,500 or $2,000 upfront.
The introductory session is via Google Hangout, and the rest of the biweekly sessions are usually by phone for an hour at a time. All of the sessions are recorded so clients can go back and listen. Since the launch of Introverted Alpha, Jones has coached 24 clients. She estimates she spends about 50 hours a week on her business.
"I feel so relieved and happy to have found this," she says. "I feel so happy — like giddily happy — that I get to work with the men that I do. They deserve to be delighted in."
For people who want to create their own coaching careers, Jones has some advice: "First, get confident in your ability to help people, because if you're not, you're always going to feel lack of integrity when you're making sales. The second piece is business skills. I think a lot of people who want to do coaching have the spiritual thing going on, but the practical, systematic, structural, pragmatic side takes a lot of work. Make sure you have the skills you need to know you can help people, and then open your mind to learning from people who you respect."
Do you have a lucrative side gig, a cool career path, or a unique approach to earning money? Email lkane[at]businessinsider[dot]com.
SEE ALSO: How one man dropped out of law school and built a business that earns him as much as $40,000 a month
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