This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What if you have a little coaching business and you like the idea of growing it and scaling it perhaps, how do you do that when your calendar is already full? Like coaching has been going well and you're booking clients and then you're like, well, what do I do next? Like I can't just create more hours in the day. I can't just create more days of the week. So what can I do?
That's the situation facing our caller today. He is a coach in Atlanta, his business is strong, good referrals, loyal clients, et cetera, but he's maxed out. What's the path forward? How do you scale in this particular kind of business at coaching a high touch personal time business without selling out or burning out? Those are two things we don't want you to do.
We want you to make more money, but also do something you believe in. So let's consider the question, detailed version and my answer coming right up. [Music]
I'm Marcus. I run a leadership coaching business in Atlanta. Things are going well.
I've got consistent clients in great word of mouth, but I'm hitting a limit in terms of time. My income is still tied to how many sessions I can squeeze into my calendar. I've thought about creating a course or group program to scale, but I don't want to lose that personalized high touch feel that people come to me for. How can I grow my business without diluting the experience or burning myself out the process? [Music]
Marcus, here's what you need to know.
What got you here won't necessarily take you to the next level. That may sound kind of like tough love, but it's not meant to be anything negative at all. Basically, you've done a lot of things right. You have built strong client relationships and done consistent one-on-one work. So that's great.
You also don't have to compromise your values or go into full internet guru mode, but you do need to be strategic with how you serve people at different levels of depth. And that's basically what the growth process is for a coaching business. Let's look at a real example. My friend Jill Coleman, she's the founder of Jill Fit. You can see Jill Fit on Instagram and elsewhere.
I'm sure she's on all the platforms. She started as a personal trainer and fitness coach, and she did well with that. But she also kind of realized like long-term trading hours for dollars is not sustainable, or at least I can't really grow that business. So she began creating programs that could help more people with less of her direct involvement. And she didn't abandon coaching, she evolved it.
So today she has a mix of digital products, group coaching programs that run on a defined schedule, live challenges and cohort-based experiences. I think some are free, some are low cost, some are higher cost. She also has a small number of premium one-on-one clients or VIP offers, and she does business mentorship for other coaches. Yes, she does a lot. She stays pretty busy.
And she's grown this to, I believe, a seven-figure business. So if you don't want to grow to a seven-figure business, you don't have to do all those things. But for those who are interested in growth, it is a ladder of access. Basically, some people get the full high-touch experience, others engage through low cost, lower contact channels. So you can do the same thing, right?
You can do the same thing with any niche. You might start by noticing what you repeat. In other words, what questions do you answer over and over in one-on-one sessions? What frameworks or advice do you find yourself delivering repeatedly? That is your raw material for a group program or digital course.
Then you design your levels, create three to two tiers of engagement, basically a free or low-cost offer and a group experience and a high-touch offer. You can just do it that simply, three offers basically. Start small and validate. Don't try to automate everything at once. Go through each part of the funnel as you build it.
You can do this over about six months. And long-term, basically what you want to do is shift your energy, not your values. Scaling doesn't mean being less personal. It means being more intentional about where your personal energy goes. So save it for those clients who need depth while building assets that serve everybody else with excellence.
Jill Coleman, as I said, has done that very well. I'm sure there's some other examples, but she's my go-to, especially in the coaching space for something like this. And I think a lot of folks can do the same, at least if they're willing to put in the work. So I hope that's helpful. Listeners, if you have a question, comment at sidehustleschool.com.
You can download every single episode of the podcast there. You can get some free resources and of course subscribe or follow, wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes every day. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
