FINISH LINE PRIVATE COACHING
WITH JESSICA ABEL
Build a Business as Brilliant as You Are
You're too good at what you do to worry about money.
LET'S GET YOU PAID
Whether you're trapped by your own success in a career that leaves you dying inside…
Or you’re a professional creative doing work that’s fricking amazing yet barely pays the bills…
IT'S TIME TO TURN YOUR EXCELLENCE INTO INCOME
You're brilliant at what you do—with a depth of expertise and creative vision others only dream of having.
Everyone raves about your work. They tell you how amazing you are. So why are you still struggling while people with half your talent seem to thrive?
You look at people who chose straightforward career paths, and can't help wondering if they did it “right.”
Maybe you've already reinvented yourself so many times you've lost count. Maybe you can't quite believe you're thinking about burning it all down again...
But there's a lot riding on your next steps.
You want to build something that's truly YOURS this time, that gets you paid well, over and over.
But you can't afford to get this one wrong.
That push you’re feeling is good news.
Now we get to harness that urgency—and your deep expertise—to design something specific and tangible:
A clear service or product that clients actually need and will pay YOU well for.
Spin your brilliance into gold.
Create consistent, substantial income.
Clear space to breathe, think deeply, and dream up what's next.
No more choosing between creative freedom and paying your bills.
Get the straight-talking guidance you need to turn your best work into a source of pride and prosperity.
You're a creative. A leader. An innovator.
You've got a vision for how you want to work, how you want to live, and the impact you want to make in the world.
Your vision for your future dangles the promise of the three magic ingredients for rewarding work:
Autonomy
Taking a midday walk because that’s what your brain needs.
Actually being there for dinner with your family instead of sending another “sorry, running late” text.
Mastery
Bringing every iota of your hard-won expertise into play solving problems worthy of your skills.
Doing the work that makes you think “this is what I signed up for.”
Purpose
Creating ripples that turn into the waves that reshape someone's whole world.
And once you taste that, it's not something you can walk away from and just “get a job.”
It's under your skin.
But bringing that vision to life can feel impossible in the face of…
...your kraken-like day job that wraps its sucker-lined limbs around every spare minute
...your free-range clients, heedlessly breaking through the boundaries you thought you'd reinforced with barbed wire
...your kids' orthodontist, your partner's grad school loans, and your ancient HVAC system's death rattle, all hunting in packs like velociraptors testing the fences
...your mental bandwidth stretched thinner than dollar-store plastic wrap
...your to-do list that breeds like rabbits in the dark
That’s when the future you’re trying to build endlessly recedes like a mirage in the desert…Until we start working together.
SHOW ME HOWHere’s the thing:
What you’re doing right now makes sense.
If you keep your well-paying job, you know the mortgage will get paid.
If you keep taking on whatever client work comes your way, you know at least some money is coming in.
If you stick to what's already working (sort of), you won't have to explain to your partner why you're setting fire to your safety net and dancing in the ashes.
It feels safe.
But here's the reality:
Your employer's business could fold.
Your biggest client could ghost you.
Your whole industry could transform overnight.
When your security depends entirely on others, you're actually standing on shakier ground than it may seem.
True security comes from building something that's YOURS.
Something that can adapt and grow, that lets you serve many people in many ways, so no single person or company holds the keys to your future.
Yes, making changes that can affect your income, your security, your family's future is scary.
Those are high stakes. And that's exactly why you need to build a business as brilliant as you are.
Creating a way of working that's truly sustainable, that supports both your bank account and your creative spirit—that's where real freedom lives.
That's where you’ll build a future you can trust.
Imagine what it could mean for you to have a business you’re proud of — One that is not only creative, ethical, and joyful, but also PROFITABLE.
Bringing in a healthy income is life-changing, not because the number in your bank account hits some arbitrary level, but because you'll be able to...
- Take care of your health. Finally get that dental work done. See a specialist about your neck pain. Buy the organic veggies without checking the price.
- Take care of your people. Pay off the plumber so your partner can relax. Get your kid those ridiculous sneakers she's been begging for. Hire help for your mom so she can stay in her home.
- Stand tall professionally. Feel confident with clients and peers. Fire toxic clients and work with people who value you. Know how valuable your work is, and get paid accordingly.
- Create real time freedom. Spend time on your creative work without guilt. Design your schedule around when you work best. Take an actual freaking vacation.
You deserve much more than simply to escape what's not working. Instead, let’s build a business powerful enough to transform your whole relationship with work and creativity.
Creating an offer this grounded in reality and this aligned with who you are is not something you can figure out in the frayed margins of your busy life.
But when you get the help you need to design that offer—which becomes the foundation of a profitable and flexible business—that’s when you start living the life you have always known was possible.
Choosing your projects.
Setting your schedule.
Doing your best work and getting paid for it.
You absolutely have what it takes to see your dream projects through.
(Yes, all coaching comes with awesome GIFs)
And you can get there because you'll be working with someone who will tell you the truth about what works (and what definitely doesn't) in creative businesses.
You'll get straight-talking guidance on building high-value services that actually pay your bills—from someone who's navigated her own path from struggling artist to creative business owner while supporting a family of 4.
You'll have a creative partner who gets it—who helps you leverage your expertise into real income while fiercely protecting your creative practice.
Launch your brilliant business with the Finish Line 3-month private coaching package
For those who are ready to dive into building a business so they can bring in revenue in a matter of months.
With Finish Line private coaching, you can get the support you need to build a business that lives up to your creative excellence. Use this pivotal moment to create work that's both financially and creatively sustainable.
Here's what you'll get with your enrollment:
- One 90-minute Kickstart Strategy Session, where we'll create a 90-day strategic plan to work towards your business goals.
- Five additional 1:1 calls, approximately every two weeks for 50 minutes, for the one-on-one, customized attention that you need to stay on track. Each session we'll troubleshoot and then work on strategy, planning, and blocks on an as-needed basis.
- Finish Line Strategy Dashboard. I will create a custom client dashboard for you, outlining the projects and next steps we’ve decided on so that communication stays open and you get laser-focused help when you need it.
- Access via your dashboard to curricular materials from the Creative Focus Workshop, Authentic Visibility, and The Autonomous Creative Business Incubator as needed to support your business development.
- Weekly Reflections. Every Friday you'll be sent a Weekly Reflection worksheet that will help you gain perspective on your day-to-day progress, celebrate your successes, and analyze your challenges so that you can design new solutions. This piece of the program is so simple, but the way it asks you to look at your issues objectively retrains your brain to be a problem-solving machine. A client recently said, “This form is genius…I can resolve my issues when I view them as ‘a friend's’ problems.”
- 90-day goal setting check-in. Whether you choose to extend our coaching engagement or not, each 90 days, we will check in and set your priorities for the following 90 days. If we continue to work together, your new priorities will be added to your dashboard.
- Asynchronous voice and text access to me via the app Voxer every weekday so that you never have to waver as you move forward on your goals. Send me a message any day of the week, and I'll answer within 24 hours on weekdays.
The investment for Finish Line Coaching is $4000. A three-month payment plan is available, at $1370 per month.
BOOK A CALLEnvision your path with the Crossroads Intensive
For those who are weighing a big pivot or competing options for their next move, and need to make an evidence-based decision and plan so they can take decisive action.
When you're at a crossroads with multiple possible paths you could choose, you need clear thinking and expert guidance to make the right choice. In the Crossroads Intensive you will evaluate your options and confidently choose a path forward that aligns with both your creative goals and practical needs.
Here's how the Crossroads Intensive works:
Over three 90-minute sessions (spaced about a week apart), we'll get clear on all the factors affecting your decision, analyze the options based on your financial, energetic, health, and personal needs, make a decision that will feel robust and trustworthy, then map out your next steps to implement.
- Session One: Explore & Evaluate
- Map out all your possible directions
- Surface hidden options and constraints
- Begin evaluating each path's real potential
- Session Two: Analyze & Compare
- Dig deep into the most promising options
- Test assumptions and examine implications
- Consider practical and creative impacts
- Session Three: Decide & Plan
- Make a confident choice about direction
- Create initial action steps
- Identify key markers for success
Between sessions, you'll have specific reflection work to help you process and prepare for our next discussion.
In just three sessions, you'll walk away with a plan you can believe in and stick to, crafted around your vision, strengths, and values, so you can start taking action with confidence.
The investment for the Intensive is $2500.
By the way, If the next stage of your path is “build an agile, sustainable, and profitable creative business.” the next steps are sure to include a Finish Line coaching engagement!
Package pricing for combined engagements is available.
BOOK A CALLHere’s how to know which package is the right fit for you:
Finish Line Coaching is best when:
- You already have a business that has many elements that you like, but it’s not paying the bills, and it needs a profitability overhaul.
- You already have a business that has many elements that you like, but it’s taking every ounce of your being to keep it running, and it needs a simplification overhaul.
- (Or, you know, both.)
- You have a clear idea of the kind of business you want to build, and the skillset to deliver the service you envision, even if you haven’t done it solo yet.
- You’ve been testing an offer with a few clients, and you need to get your foundations set up right to start making this a real business.
Crossroads Intensive is the pick when:
- Based on your interests and skillset, you have several directions you can take with your business, and you have no idea which will be the best option for you.
- You’re leaving the day-job world and you need to choose the path that’s most likely to be able to replace your day-job income.
- You’re on the cusp of making big changes in your business, and you need to sort out which offers and strategies are most likely to get you where you want to go.
- You have another kind of huge, scary decision to make that you’ve been putting off because you don’t know how to make a decision you trust, and it’s keeping you stuck.
You’ll want to start with Crossroads and then do Finish Line Coaching when:
- You need to make a big decision about which business to start, and then you need to build out that business.
- You’re making a big decision and setting strategy for your existing business, then you need support to implement those steps.
Is Jessica the right coach for where you are right now?
Finish Line Coaching may be perfect for you if:
- You're a creative business owner who's constantly working nights and weekends servicing clients, while the plans that could transform your income and free your time stay stuck on the back burner
- You're an innovator with big ideas for a business that you need to get off the ground
- You have a side-hustle you want to turn into your real job
- You have complex, overlapping commitments and constraints that require a custom approach to building a sustainable creative life
- You need systems for managing clients and running your business that match how your creative brain actually works—because conventional business advice leaves you overwhelmed and things falling through cracks
- You want to solve your issues by strategically choosing the right focus and building a strong foundation, not by layering on tactics and hacks
- You want to figure out how to close your income gap by working less for more money, instead of making and doing more all the time
This might not be a great fit if:
- You're just getting started and don't have professional experience to draw on
- You prefer to work from standardized business templates rather than a customized approach
- You're looking for a quick fix or “passive income” solution rather than building something sustainable
- You're hoping to find a magic shortcut to monetizing your creative work directly
- You're determined to try to make your current approach work rather than consider new directions
- You're not willing to challenge your beliefs about money and business
- You're not willing to prioritize building your business over other life commitments for the next few months
The Crossroads Intensive is perfect for you if:
- You're ready to move on…something…but you've got several competing options, and need support to decide which will move the needle fastest.
- You want to grow or scale your existing business, but you're awash in and overwhelmed by possible options, and you don't want to waste time and resources sorting it out.
- You need the strategic 10,000-foot view and also the granular 5-foot view so that you're confident about your decisions and next actions, and you also know you're not wasting effort.
This might not be a fit if:
- You're starting completely from scratch with no ideas to work with. (Though you don't need to know which direction is right for you—that's what we'll figure out together!).
- You're looking for ongoing support and troubleshooting. (But don’t worry: that’s what you get when you upgrade to a Finish Line coaching package!)
- You just want to be told what to do. We focus on custom-built strategy built around YOUR strengths and your needs, not templates and tactics.
REAL PEOPLE, REAL RESULTS
By the end of the year, I should be able to pull in enough to run the house on just my money.
I was feeling very guilty about not being able to bring in what I felt was really just my market rate. I'm not even asking for a lot. I just wanted to be paid for the skills that I had. And even that was not happening.
Now I'm at a place where I can very easily see that by the end of the year, I should be able to pull in enough to run the house on just my money.
— Avantika Hari-Agrawal
filmmaker and marketing strategist
Incubator business coaching alum
“The permission to design a business around what I would like my reality to be: That's been huge.”
Designing the business around my reality and the permission to design a business around what I would like my reality to be: That's been huge....There's a structure. These are the moving parts, this is how they work together, and they've gotta work around me. That has been pretty mega.
Rauni Higson
Silversmith, artist in metal
Incubator business coaching alum
Request a free 30-minute Next Steps Session
In our 30-minute call, we'll discuss your goals, get clear what's keeping you from building the business you envision, and identify next actions. We'll also discuss options for working together.
Click the button below, fill out the short form, and I'll get back to you within two business days with a response. If it looks like I could be a good fit to help you, I'll send you a link to schedule your free 30-minute Next Steps Session.
APPLY & BOOK A CALLWhy an application? I help career creatives and business owners choose, plan, and launch their businesses. But I’m not an expert in everything! This application helps me identify whether I may be the right person to help you with what you’re facing. If not, I want to be very upfront about that, so you can find what you need!
HEAR FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE MAKING IT WORK
“From $10,400 last year to $24,000 this year. And the year isn't over yet”
Last year I booked somewhere around $10,400 in portraits. This year I'm in the $24,000 range. And it's only the end of August, so who knows what the end of the year will bring.
I have a plan for my business now and that sense of... control isn't the right word, because control feels really tight, but a command of this information that I can use to make better choices, use to make better decisions, use to create strategies.
Sarah Marie Lacy,
Artist and portrait painter
Incubator business coaching alum
One of the best investments I've made all year
I felt absolutely overwhelmed, and I had too many ideas to really get focused in on what I needed to do, and no way to consistently sort them. I felt guilty all the time, I felt like I never deserved a break.
And it felt like I was never going to be able to grow out of it.
Now, I have given myself a promotion. It's amazing how much my firm has grown and how much clarity I've gotten around what I do. I'm able to go and sell projects now that I would never have even attempted to follow up on as a result of what I have learned.
This is one of the best investments I've made all year. Jessica sent out an email calling for early registrations and I opened it and I opened my wallet, clicked on the link and signed right back up.
— Jenny Trautman
Strategic consultant
CFW + Momentum System coaching + AV alum
Hi there. I’m Jessica.
I’M A CARTOONIST/ AUTHOR/ TEACHER/ EDITOR/ ILLUSTRATOR TURNED CREATIVE BUSINESS OWNER.
I know what it’s like to be doing everything “right,” working insane hours and still not making ends meet.
My own story is why I’m totally committed to my mission to help as many artists, writers, and other creatives take control of their careers as I possibly can.
My comics career—from the outside—looked pretty good.
I received high-five-figure advances and great reviews—and still couldn't make ends meet. I came (late) to the realization that there are accepted paths to building a career as an author that, while they may help you produce books, do not help you make a living.
Those old rules just don't work.
I like to think of myself as competent. Yet the total lack of connection between the massive effort I was investing and the minimal return was driving me crazy.
I needed control over my life and my future.
I needed to support my family.
That's why I pivoted hard to building a business that leverages everything I love about creative work while actually paying my bills.
And that's exactly what I help other creatives do.
I've helped dozens of creative professionals launch businesses that actually work— designed around how creative minds think and how creative professionals need to live. My clients build sustainable, profitable businesses that honor their creative integrity while bringing in real income.
I want you to have an independent, creative, sustainable business.
I want you to have control of your future.
I want you to stop feeling victimized by your creative life (and stop feeling guilty for feeling that way when so many others would love to do what you do).
I believe that every professional creative needs to equip themself with powerful, effective strategy so that they can build businesses that meet their needs.
Strategy is the key that unlocks powerful decisions that will allow artists to live and work as they choose.
We (the big We—the world) need you to be successful because we need you to have the freedom and support to bring your work to the world for the rest of us to experience!
WHAT IT'S LIKE TO WORK WITH AN EXPERIENCED CREATIVE
Step-by-step support for building a business from creative work
Jessica has provided me with invaluable support on my journey, drawing on her wealth of real-world experience. She showed me how I can build a business from my creative work, one step at a time, every step of the way.
— Chris Sellers
Game designer and publisher
Incubator business coaching & 1:1 alum
“Jessica understands both the art world and the business world.”
Your background made me feel like, this is someone who understands both the art world and the business world.
I can come with my specific set of problems and not have to explain all of the backstory of what the art world is like and why someone's nice tidy solution won't work…
— Sarah Marie Lacy
Portrait painter
Incubator business coaching alum
Build a Business That Works As Beautifully As You Do
I work with accomplished professionals who are ready to stop settling for less-than-brilliant careers.
Whether you're successful in your career but dreaming of more creative autonomy, or you're a creative professional who's sick and tired of working twice as hard for half as much, you're committed to building something that actually works.
REAL PEOPLE, REAL RESULTS
“I really hoped I was going to be able to earn back the money that I'd spent and I'm glad to say I have.”
I really hoped I was going to be able to earn back the money that I'd spent and I'm glad to say I have. It is really satisfying to be able to help people find a creative path forward. I'm really enjoying the work that I'm doing. I get some really interesting clients. They're just amazing. It's like having all the good bits of teaching and none of the bad bits.
Samantha Clark
Visual artist, author, and coach
Incubator business coaching alum
“I can consistently show up for this business…and do work that I actually feel super passionate about.”
I can see five years into the future now. I can see how I can consistently show up for this business and grow it, and do work that I actually feel super passionate about and excited about, and I haven't had that for a long time.
Eleanor Chaney
Artist and creativity coach
Incubator business coaching alum
Don’t be an accidental business owner. Design your business on purpose.
You're not an apprentice anymore. You've got the expertise. Now it's time to build a business that matches your brilliance.
When you build a business that's worthy of you...
Everything shifts.
You can finally breathe, knowing your income is reliable.
You can look at your calendar without dread, because you've designed your work to respects your time and energy.
You can raise your rates without guilt, because you know exactly how your work creates value.
You can say no to projects that drain you, because you're not desperately chasing every dollar.
You can think deeply about your work, because you're not constantly putting out fires.
Most importantly, you can trust yourself again.
You can trust your judgment, believe in your expertise, and have confidence in your ability to build something that actually works.
This is the future you deserve. And together, we can make it real.
Courage comes before confidence.
You can do this.
