Business Coaching for LGBTQ Business Owners isn’t just another niched service – it’s a radical necessity. If you’re an LGBTQ+ business owner, you already know this: success was never built with us in mind. Every networking event where you had to weigh your safety against your authenticity, every funding pitch where your pronouns or your partner’s gender became the unspoken elephant in the room, every well-meaning straight coach telling you to “just show up consistently” without a clue what it costs your nervous system to be visible in this world – it all stacks up.
I’m Wendy Faith. I’ve been running businesses since the early 2000s, back when dial-up internet and blog rings were still a thing. I built and sold multiple companies in publishing and digital media. But back then, I wasn’t living openly as queer. I spent decades so disconnected from my authentic self that I didn’t even know what was missing. I thought I just had to overachieve harder to finally feel worthy.
The truth is that my terror of visibility wasn’t because I “wasn’t confident enough.” It was because I grew up being bullied and shamed for who I was, long before I had words for it. So I hid, sabotaged my marketing, and I stayed under the radar because small felt safer. Even after all my achievements, there was this relentless sense of needing to prove myself to… well, everyone.
When I finally came out later in life, I realized how much of my business struggle was rooted in living out of alignment with my truth. And now that I coach LGBTQ business owners, I see how common this is. Every conversation ends up circling back to the same questions: “How do I grow this business without burning out, going back into the closet, or selling my soul to the corporate gods?”
I’m here to tell you – you don’t have to.
Unfortunately Our Challenges Aren’t Just Mindset
I’m gonna say something that might piss off your average Instagram money mindset guru: discrimination, past trauma, and lack of access to funding aren’t just mindset issues. They’re fucking systemic barriers. Sure, I use parts work and somatic coaching tools to help you work with your fear, doubt, negative emotions, and potentially self-sabotaging patterns. But I will never tell you that your queerness is a “block” you need to heal to become successful, nor will I bypass your actual lived experiences to help you ‘stay positive’.
Here’s what we’re actually up against:
- Discrimination and erasure. Whether it’s banks rejecting your application, trolls bombing your social media ads, or potential clients ghosting when they realize your partner’s name isn’t Chad or Karen, these experiences leave scars. They also shape how you show up in your marketing, your pricing, and your leadership.
- Past trauma. Many LGBTQ+ folks carry trauma from family rejection, religious shame, conversion therapy, bullying, or being forced to hide themselves for safety. Trauma doesn’t just live in your memory – it lives in your body, making visibility and risk feel life-threatening even when it “shouldn’t.”
- Funding barriers. The data is stark. Queer-owned businesses are less likely to get bank loans, venture capital, or investor support. Add other marginalizations – disability, race, neurodivergence – and it gets worse. Your business challenges aren’t just about confidence; they’re also about systemic oppression.
- Loneliness and leadership fatigue. Many LGBTQ entrepreneurs never had role models who looked like them. We become our own role models, which is powerful as hell but exhausting. Having a coach who gets that can be the difference between pushing through alone and feeling actually supported.
Why Work With Me?
Business coaching for LGBTQ business owners is at the heart of what I do, because our needs, struggles, and dreams don’t always fit the mainstream blueprint. My coaching isn’t your average “scale to 7 figures in 6 months” gig. First of all, if you want that, I can help you get it – but I’m more interested in whether you’ll still like yourself when you get there.
Here’s what I bring to your table:
- Lived Experience + Business Strategy. I’ve built businesses from the ground up and sold two online companies. I’ve run high-traffic media sites, launched products, and hired teams around the world. But I’ve also spent decades navigating the business world feeling like an outsider in my own life. Coming out later in life gave me a whole new embodied understanding of what it means to run a business rooted in authenticity instead of fear.
- Trauma-Informed and Political AF. I’m not going to pretend your struggles are personal failings. I’m going to help you get clear on where the system ends and your power begins, so you can lead yourself and your business without bypassing your reality.
- Parts Work and Trauma-Informed Nervous System Tools. As an ICF trained coach, a certified trauma informed coach and having a psychology background, I help you build inner leadership, so you’re not constantly fighting yourself to be productive or visible. We’ll unhook your worth from your work so you can actually enjoy building your empire, however big or small you want it to be.
- Practical Strategy. You’ll leave our sessions with concrete, personalized next steps that feel doable and aligned with your values – whether it’s marketing that doesn’t make you want to vomit, pricing that reflects your worth, or business models that honor your capacity.
Because at the end of the day, business coaching for LGBTQ business owners isn’t just about growing your income (although hell yes to that). It’s about reclaiming the right to build a life on your own damn terms – where your queerness isn’t just tolerated but celebrated, where your trauma is honored but not the driver, and where your business becomes a vehicle for your fullest self-expression.
One last thing.
If you’ve spent years trying to become more disciplined, more confident, or more consistent, I have a gentle suspicion that those things might not actually be the problem.
I created the Have Your Own Back workbook for thoughtful, capable people who can show up brilliantly for everyone else but somehow disappear when their own business needs them most. It will take about fifteen minutes to go through and may just give you language for experiences you’ve struggled to explain for years.
