The Problem with Boss Babe Culture (& what it represents in the online business coaching world)
There’s a trend I’ve noticed in the online business coaching world that has been rubbing me the wrong way, and it needs to be talked about.
I’m talking about Boss Babe culture and the lack of integrity I see in a lot of the marketing and messaging happening there.
Because for me, integrity is one of my top values, and a lack of integrity just isn’t how I do or teach business.
There’s countless hashtaggable phrases for women in business online these days, like #bossbabe, #fempreneur, #SheEO, #girlboss — I could literally list them for hours.
And while a lot of these probably started with intentions of empowerment, and are still very empowering for some people, I’ve noticed a sort of culture that has developed around them over time…
And it’s a pretty toxic culture.
And we need to talk about it.
So in this post, we’re going to look at what I’m calling Boss Babe culture, how it’s related to bro marketing culture, its connections to capitalism and exploitation, and the general lack of integrity, especially around income claims, that I’m seeing in this section of the online business coaching world.
What do I mean by Boss Babe culture?
I know for some people, the idea of “boss babe” is very empowering.
And honestly, I don’t care what you call yourself – if you feel empowered by “boss,” “paper girl boss,” or “femme printer,” that's totally fine. Because we get to label ourselves whatever feels empowering to us.
I'm not out here to cancel “boss babe” or anything.
But I feel that boss babe culture has really become this entity.
It's like the parallel version of bro marketing, but in a form-fitting mini dress and red bottom high heels. The twin sister of the gross bro dude with the Lambo who's shouting at everyone.
I feel like a lot of the people who emphasize this ideology reduce things to corrosive capitalism – but with lipstick.
This is problematic because in the typical bro marketing, digital business world, as we've come to know it, it's been this big money grab focused on “how much money can we make?”
I am hopeful that the tide is changing because I see a lot of people who are actively pushing back against this.
There’s no problem with having monetary goals or wanting to make money.
What’s missing from the entities of boss babe and bro marketing cultures is that there doesn’t seem to be a larger goal for that money or the impact they want to make in the world with it.
Instead, it's very exploitative.
For example, a lot of the people I find as examples of this culture are the same people who talk about getting VAs and team members from overseas – and not because they find great talent overseas, but because they want to take advantage of the ability to outsource for super cheap.
If you find a great VA who happens to be in the Philippines, that's rad. Hire that VA.
But in these instances, it’s instead pitched in a way that lacks integrity – like, it's so much cheaper, it's dirt cheap. You could be hiring somebody for $5 an hour, $10 an hour, to be your VA. And they justify it by saying the cost of living is “so different in these third world countries” and all of that.
This is very harmful. It's very exploitative.
Capitalism and the lack of core-values behind it
While I appreciate the bare-bones definition of capitalism – of being able to start and run a business and to exchange goods and services for money – it’s different when we’re talking about capitalism as a system. Because it’s run rampant and exploited a lot of people, and it continues to exploit a lot of people.
I find that for people perpetuating Boss Babe culture and bro-marketing culture, there's no shame about it. They're happy to talk about it and put it out there because they don't actually see anything wrong with what they’re doing.
Because again, there's no larger value system behind what they're doing.
It's all just about getting the most money. Getting the things that we view as flashy status symbols and flaunting them so everyone knows how wealthy and powerful and amazing they are.
Listen, if you want to treat yourself to some red-bottom shoes or a nice handbag – no shame. No shade at all. Go for it.
But there’s a difference between saying, “I'm gonna treat myself if I had a really amazing year” and “I just want to make sure other people know how successful I am.”
That’s where I take issue. When people are only viewing success through the lens of how much money can you brag about making. And that’s where we need to start implementing change by promoting integrity.
The Instagram post that kicked this off
Not long ago, I saw an Instagram post by a business coach that really got me questioning the integrity and culture of the business coaching industry.
I'm not going to call out the person because I don't think it's necessary. What’s more important is that this is evidence of a prevailing issue in the world of business coaching.
Integrity is the value at the tippy top of all my core values and how those play out in my business and brand.
And I find that a lot of marketing out there in the online world is just not really rooted in a lot of integrity. There's probably a lot more happening that I don't see, but at least on the surface it seems integrity is lacking.
So back to this Instagram post.
It was about $10k months and what that really means.
But it didn’t jive with my perspective on making revenue claims and about financial goals in general related to our views of success.
This person was essentially saying that when business coaches say “I had a $10k month” that they don't actually mean that they had $10,000 coming into their bank account that month. What they really mean is that they closed $10k worth of business. They had $10k in contracts signed.
For instance, if you had a $5,000 package and you got two people in for that package, so $10,000 in contracted work, but the deposit on that work was $1,000 each, so you only had $2,000 cash in hand, you technically closed $10k worth of contracts.
So what I think she was trying to say was don’t just think, “Well, I'm really bummed that I only had a $2k month” but instead turn it around for yourself and say, “Let's celebrate the fact that we closed $10k in contracts.”
But it takes it one step too far to say that you can then turn around and tell people you had a $10k month.
This deception is where I have the real issue. This is where it feels out of integrity to me.
Income Statements and Perpetuating Harmful Systems
Part of why I'm not calling the poster out is because she straight up said she learned this from another coach.
So in a way, I have a lot of empathy for her, because I want to assume and hope that her intention was to give people a mindset shift to feel like if they are disappointed in the revenue that's coming in, to look at the larger picture of the contracts they've closed and give them that motivational boost.
But it’s also an easy ploy to get new business by always talking numbers.
I don't think that you should never talk numbers.
I just mean there are so many variables behind the scenes to revenue coming in. For example, if X number is the revenue that came in, how much of that is actually profit?
Claiming $10k in contracts signed as $10k revenue for the month is extremely reductive, and removes all the nuance, of both expenses and personal situations and goals.
The amount of revenue that you bring in or even the amount of profit that you make can mean totally different things to totally different people in totally different situations.
It’s an easy default to say, “Ooh, look at me, I'm a business coach and I have these $10k months. You should hire me because I'll help you have $10k months too.”
But what’s really being said here?
Be wary of bending the truth to make things seem better than they are. Nope, nope, nope, no, I'm 100% not here for that. I think that's weird as hell.
But for me, if I'm telling you a revenue amount, I actually mean cash in hand. If I'm ever saying a number, it’s exactly what I mean. It is not trickery.
How can we be part of a culture change?
I feel like there could be a lot of power in a Boss Babe movement or a movement that supports women in business.
And I think there are clusters of people privileged to be in communities where there are larger goals beyond just making money for the sake of making money. Bigger impact goals and personal goals to serve people with our businesses. And that is really cool and really inspiring.
So again, I can see other people out there who are doing this with a lot more integrity and much deeper values. It is amazing and wonderful. And gives me hope.
But on the whole, there's been this disconnect among women in particular, where there’s a sort of pressure that if these dudes are out here making money and showing things off, then we need to emulate this form of success.
So some women fall into this pattern of striving for that and using exploitative business practices and using manipulative marketing practices and sleazy sales tactics.
This is a real bummer.
It harms us all because as entrepreneurs, we have a real opportunity to leverage the money we make to bring about real, valuable change we want to see in the world.
So instead of furthering corrosive capitalistic practices and principles – with lipstick on – we, especially women, can break that mold. We can be those lights of hope in our communities emulating impactful, world-changing business and stop perpetuating harmful systems
So if you feel that you have to be proving some sort of revenue that you make in order to be taken seriously for the gifts and the value that you offer your clients, I’m here to say you don't have to.
I'm also here to say don't believe everything you read.
I know for a fact that a lot of people are totally honest and transparent and they are not being deceptive.
But also, if you see stuff like somebody else is making a certain amount of money and that puts you into a shame spiral of comparison, remember that you might not be getting the whole picture.
If that person is being honest, maybe you just need a little help to get there, but it's possible. Maybe you just haven't done that yet. There are always ways to learn. And if you're in it for the long haul, you can grow and get better at what you do, and increase your revenue over time.
Getting your average monthly revenue consistently to a higher place is possible. It's 100%, the reality of my own business. But we don't always know what helped somebody get to that point, right?
We are all on our own timeline. We're all on our own journey.
And on that journey, we can stand for integrity.
We can stand against the people promoting bad business practices and dishonest revenue practices.
Just the fact that this poster said she learned from another coach, who knows if that other coach learned it from somebody else who said that was okay. How many people back said this was okay? Where does the lack of integrity start?
I don't know.
What I do know is that I am hopeful that there are enough of us who really want to live our lives with integrity and run our businesses with integrity that we can have these open and honest conversations.
And that we won’t look to weird revenue claims as the only marker of success because success is so, so much larger than that.
