How to Scale a Coaching Business (Without Burning Out!)

Imagine you’re the captain of a ship, charting your path toward new adventures. That’s how it feels when you’re scaling a coaching business. Exciting? Yes. Easy? Not so much.

The winds and waves won’t always be in your favor – you have to navigate through unpredictable storms, social media whirlwinds, and sales funnel hurdles. But what if I said there was a simpler approach?

An approach that’s been full-proofed by coaches time and time again. Because let’s be real – there have been thousands of successful coaches (as we know them) in the last 40 or so years.

But what worked 30 years ago won’t work now. Not only is our current technological landscape completely different (and obviously more advanced), consumers are also much smarter and savvier with where they spend their money. That’s why these days it takes quite a bit more finesse than it used to in order to scale a coaching business without burning out.

Grow Inbound Traffic

Often the most simple levers are the ones worth pulling first. Ultimately, making sales is a numbers game (especially if you already know your numbers like conversion rates!). If you increase the amount of potentially ideal clients entering your ecosystem (i.e. visiting your website or social media accounts), you’ll naturally end up with an increase in sales. Assuming your in-between sales journey is already making sales, of course.

Social Media Ads

Paid advertisements on platforms like Instagram and TikTok aren’t just for big corporations – they can actually be game-changers for coaching businesses. These let you reach an audience far beyond your followers, and typically with advanced targeting so that you can get the most bang for your advertising buck.

Between 2019 – the last year before the pandemic – and 2024, global social media advertising spending skyrocketed by 140%, surpassing an estimated $230 billion USD in the latter year. When it comes to coaching businesses specifically, Kate S. (a remote career coach) saw a 1.43 return on ad spend after 4 weeks, Gemma B. (an online business coach) saw an average return of 400% after 5 weeks, and other coaches have seen return on social media ad spends ranging from 6.23 to 26.9! This is possible for you too.

Of course, a lot goes into running successful social media ad campaigns. The software isn’t usually that beginner-friendly, so there’s a steep learning curve if you were to try to have a go at it yourself. And you also need to test a bunch of ad creatives to find the winning ones before doubling down. If you have the budget for it, it can still be highly profitable to hire a social media ads agency like Litchfield Media to take care of it all for you.

Organic Social Media

When it comes to scaling with organic social media, you can either pump up the frequency of posting content (attention-grabbing, strategic posts!) on a platform you’re already on or you can add a new organic social media platform into the mix of your marketing.

By posting more frequently on an existing account, you’re pouring fuel on the fire. You already have an engaged audience and you just need to post more in order to reach more of those people in your target market. This can be highly effective! Because sometimes it’s a numbers game. If you had 100K followers on Instagram, even converting 1% of that audience to a coaching container or program worth $1,000 per person would be 1,000 clients and customers and a cool $1 million.

However, if you believe your target market is more so enjoying a different social media platform, then it can be smarter (and ultimately more profitable) to start up that platform. For example, if you’ve only been active on YouTube, then you could be missing out on valuable sales from TikTok – which brings me to the next point.

The beauty of organic posting on multiple social media platforms is repurposing! Especially repurposing from long-form content to short-form content because it’s easier to cut down than to add on.

Repurposing is essentially trimming down a piece of content and changing its structure and/or formatting to fit a different social media platform. A lot of video-based content-creating coaches publish lengthy YouTube videos first and then edit them down to 30 second clips for TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Or they write long blog posts and then edit those down to tweets (sorry not sorry, X), LinkedIn posts, or threads.

Not saying any of this is easy! To reduce burn out as the founder, I’d recommend hiring a part-time Virtual Assistant to repurpose and publish this content for you. After they’re onboarded into your internal systems and everything, all you have to do is create the long-form pieces of content and then hand them off to your VA who’ll take care of the rest. Easy enough, especially if you’re already creating long-form content anyways!

If you’re not into the idea of building out a team (more power to you, solopreneur), there are online tools you can use to do the repurposing – repurpose.io is a good option.

Website Search Engine Optimization

As a coach, you know how hard it can be to consistently get dream clients. Whether you’ve gotten clients from social media, referrals, or ads, optimizing your website for search engines (think: Google) is a whole different ball game.

Why? Well, because it’s the one marketing channel that taps into demand instead of creating it.

Every day, thousands of people are searching online for the things they want to know or, more relevant to you, want to buy. They do this whether or not your website even exists on the web. 

SEO is the art and science of optimizing a website so that it gets in front of the right people at the right time in their buying journey.

As a highly experienced SEO Specialist, I need you to know that SEO is nuanced. There’s not just one tweak you do and suddenly your website ranks #1 for thousands of profitable keywords. Anyone who claims that is outright lying to you or doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

No, it takes a careful examination of your website’s current situation, your goals, your capacity (financial or otherwise), and creating a plan of action that’s strategic and ROI-oriented.

If you’re a new coach on the scene, I wouldn’t recommend focusing on SEO right now. That’s because if you’re still figuring out your ideal clients, then you don’t want to attract even more of the potentially wrong or bad fit clients.

So if you’ve been around the block and know the ins and outs of your ideal clients (i.e. likely earning at least $3,000 per month), then by all means explore SEO. You’ve worked so hard for your dollars – I only want to see you succeed at all that you try!

A DIYer? No worries, SEO for coaches can be done on your own too. It’ll take much longer than hiring a pro of course, but it’s better to take small, sustainable steps than making a huge investment that’s out of your budget.

NOT a DIYer? And ready to start attracting dream coaching clients on autopilot (without ads)?

Book an SEO Audit today to get started! 1-week turnaround and no long-term commitment.

Google Pay-Per-Click

Google PPC, otherwise known as search engine marketing, is the practice of buying ads that appear at the top of Google’s search results after someone searches for something.

This is a heck of a faster marketing channel than search engine optimization because you can buy ads tomorrow, immediately start generating clicks, and potentially get a lead just like that. Google’s own data (take this with a grain of salt!) stated that in 2024 the average return-on-investment from Google Ads was $2 for every $1 spent.

Buying Google Search ads can definitely be a smart way to scale your coaching business if you’re looking for fast results and don’t mind sacrificing the sustained longevity that comes with ranking organically.

You’re still benefitting from showing up at the top of results for targeted, profitable searches like you do with SEO. But it’s important to keep in mind that as soon as you stop paying for ads, you’ll stop seeing results. Just like with everything else, there’s pros and cons.

Now, if you’re a DIYer, this can be trickier to learn yourself than for example social media ads because there’s more of a technical learning curve – especially if you want to maximize the efficiency of your ad budget.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can easily waste your valuable resources by bidding on extremely competitive or even unprofitable keywords.

Cold Emailing

Cold emailing is the practice of sending out a large amount of emails to targeted email addresses. There are ways and tools online where you can get the email addresses of thousands of people (I know, scary right?) and then cold email blast them.

Of course, there are a number of best practices with this tactic. For example, you’ll want to “warm up” the sender email address you’d be using (it’s advisable to create a brand new email address!) by sending some safe emails that definitely won’t get flagged as spam and that the receivers will reply to. These send positive signals about the sender email address.

To clarify the ‘create a brand new email address’ tip above, the reason behind this is when you send out an email to thousands or hundreds of people at one time (especially from a fairly newer email address) it’s likely that you see a super high rate of getting flagged as spam.

If your email address gets an extremely high (unnaturally high) number of spam flags, you’ve likely burned that email address and it wouldn’t make sense to use it again. I repeat – never use your main email address or your business’s email address for cold email campaigns!

While cold emailing isn’t the least spammy tactic (I think we can all agree on that!), it can definitely return worthwhile results as a coach. That’s because you probably sell high-ticket coaching containers – whether one-on-one or group programs. You’d have to crunch the exact numbers yourself based on your offers, but even if 1% of recipients replied to your cold email campaigns (which is the average), it could potentially be profitable for you.

That being said, if you’re like ‘no way do I or can I do this on my own’, I’d recommend hiring a trusted (keyword: trusted) cold emailing service provider. Based on loads of positive reviews and actual results they’ve gotten over the past couple of years, I’d recommend this cold emailing agency.

Diversify Your Coaching Offers

Whether you already have a fully decked out offer suite or are just offering one-on-one sessions, diversifying your coaching offers can be a highly profitable way to scale in the long-term. In the dynamic world of coaching, one size absolutely doesn’t fit all. Diverse offerings are key for a thriving coaching business – and for good reason. Across all different niches of coaching (from life to health to business), market sizes range from $2.07 to $103.56 billion as of 2025.

Create an Effective Group Coaching Program

To really expand your offer suite and scale your coaching business, group programs offer an effective solution. Not only do they allow you to serve more clients simultaneously but also provide great value – like buying wholesale goods instead of individual items.

The key to success is fostering a stimulating and safe atmosphere where participants can learn from both each other and you – it’s about creating links between people who wouldn’t have otherwise connected as well as creating an environment for accountability and community.

In a society that promotes and admires individualism, people are increasingly craving that social element that’s necessary for all humans to live long and satisfying lives. But keep in mind people also don’t want to feel like a number or that you only value what they paid you.

To avoid making people feel that way, I’d recommend limiting group program sizes to a maximum of 20 people. I’ve personally experienced group programs and communities (a couple not necessarily coaching, but still) ranging in size from 12 people to 200 people. And a common concern people shared was the fact that with so many people, they feel lost in the mix.

If you’re super struggling to put together an awesome group coaching program, consider working with this genuinely stellar business coach. She actually knows what she’s doing, has done it for many years at a high level, and cares about her clients’ results.

Make The Most Of One-On-One Sessions

You being a coach I definitely don’t need to tell you about the importance of one-on-one clients. But they’re worth talking about because, if I had to guess, you’re probably not making the most of them.

Are you selling your sessions as packages that are more discounted the more sessions included? Are you taking all of your business costs into account in your pricing? Are you offering a sliding scale based on income level to make your sessions more accessible? Are you providing takeaways post-session and/or homework for the client to do in between sessions?

Offering more value within your one-on-one sessions not only allows you to raise your pricing, but it also makes your coaching more valuable (and therefore appealing) to the right potential clients. And there are trickle down effects.

When your one-on-one time is perceived as highly valuable, that effect trickles down to your other offers. Logically, if your time is worth a lot, then accessing it at any price point becomes more desirable. Of course, you should use this principle ethically without manipulation or lying – please use your discretion and common sense <3

Another thing to keep in mind when packaging your coaching is that the longer of a timeframe you can sell, the more stable of a business you’ll have. Why? Because you’ll be able to predict future income with more accuracy and make investment decisions accordingly.

Launch Online Courses & Digital Products For Passive Income

Besides live interactions though, there’s another ace up your sleeve – online courses and digital products. Yep, digitalization isn’t just transforming our lives; it’s revolutionizing how we distribute knowledge too.

The beauty of these offers is that once you’ve done the upfront work, they’re passive income for your business. Just set up the automations for the necessary emails and consumption of the offer, and you’re golden! Of course, there’ll probably be some customer support required as customers will naturally have questions.

Not sure what to create? First, you’ll want to run a few ideas by your best clients and/or your audience or followers. This’ll give you an idea of what your people actually want to see from you versus you just guessing or scoping out competitors.

Second, there’s a whole host of things you could create! Don’t feel confined to do what everyone else is doing – just because they’re doing something doesn’t mean it’s the best thing for you to do, right? Right.

From a 1-hour $20 workshop to a $800 15-hour online course, there’s endless possibilities. There’s also ebooks, workbooks, meditations, masterclasses, specific training videos, an email course (an online course delivered over a series of emails), etc.

Looking for good examples? Check out this health coach, psychic medium coach, and this time management coach. They’re all previous SEO clients of mine and have awesomely diverse (and successful!) offer suites!

Remember, the art of scaling lies in innovating while keeping your coaching approach intact. Diversification isn’t about doing different things; it’s about doing things differently.

Streamline Your Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

To effectively scale your coaching business, streamlining your operations is hard to avoid. By doing so, you can become a more efficient operator and focus on what truly matters: helping people through high-quality coaching.

Starting from just anywhere won’t serve you though. I recommend auditing your SOPs first. This means mapping out all of the processes involved in your business, like write a blog post -> repurpose into social media posts. A free tool I recommend for easily creating the map is Miro.

If you’ve never thought about your SOPs before right now, don’t feel bad! SOPs aren’t really something any new coach thinks about – it’s only as you begin to scale up your coaching business that these things get on your radar and become more important.

An excellent way to streamline operations is through automation where possible. This lets you offload repetitive tasks such as sending certain emails or scheduling social media posts. Automating processes can also reduce the potential for mistakes, as well as save valuable time.

The best business automation tools I recommend are Zapier, Make, and IFTTT. They all connect to popular tools like Squarespace, Flodesk, ActiveCampaign, and others, but each has its own pros and cons, so be sure to do a bit of research before committing to one.

Beyond automating processes, consider outsourcing some repetitive admin work to a freelance or part-time virtual assistant. From managing your calendar to handling customer inquiries to getting your contractors paid, virtual assistants can be absolutely amazing (especially if your bandwidth keeps narrowing and you’re feeling more and more stressed out with everything on your plate).

Optimize Sales Strategies for Your Coaching Business

Your business is like fine wine – it gets better with time. But, getting those initial sales and scaling up your client/customer load? That’s where the magic of optimizing sales strategies comes into play.

Up until this point, you may or may not have been intentional about your sales strategies – and that’s ok! Now’s the time to start thinking about how to improve this area of your business. Even if you have a 98% close rate from discovery call to signed coaching client, sales strategies can always be improved.

A big part of closing a sale is addressing common objections. Potential objections change niche to niche, as well as coach to coach, so it’s up to you to research and discover the top 3 to 5 most common objections a coach like you encounters. Maybe you already have a pretty good idea based on past discovery calls, but haven’t ever thought about them intentionally.

When you’ve got the 3 to 5 most common objections, brainstorm the best possible things you could say (and genuinely follow-up on!) to quell those concerns. There are loads of resources online for this, so I’d recommend doing some digging if you can’t think of anything.

Sales strategies often get a bad rep because almost everyone’s had a bad experience getting sold to. I’m sure you’ve heard of sales that feel icky, pushy, sleazy, scammy – the list goes on. That tends to happen when the seller wants the sale too much, which doesn’t feel good to anyone involved.

The key to selling is coming from a place of genuine helpfulness, not from a place of wanting to get paid. No one wants to feel like your pay day!

Sales Emails

If you don’t already have freebies that when someone downloads them, they get signed up to your email list – this should be a top priority to get set up! I recommend this email tool.

Once that’s in place, the first step in building a stronger sales avenue for your offers is to set up a post-freebie delivery sales email sequence. When someone grabs your freebie(s), they’re obviously interested in what you do. But they’re most likely not ready to buy something from you yet. That’s why you’ll want to send around 5 or so emails spaced out a couple of days after they give their email address. If you do this, please note, you should mention next to your freebies that they’ll be signed up to your emails – this is transparent and everyone appreciates it.

That’s where a strategic sales email sequence comes in. Fully automated, this sequence should first provide a lot more value to the recipient that’s tied to the freebie they downloaded. If they downloaded more than one, it’s up to you which offer you want to lead them to – there are no hard rules.

If they ultimately decide not to purchase anything, you can offer a downsell. This is an additional pitch in the sequence that offers a deal on something you offer that costs less than the first offer you pitched them. Need a sales email sequence template? You’ll really love this copywriting resources shop!

Partnerships and Collaborations

Want to know one of the most underrated ways to scale up a coaching business? You guessed it – partnerships and collaborations. You don’t have to go it alone. By forming partnerships or doing a collab with complementary businesses (key word: complementary), you tap into their audiences and they tap into yours – it’s a win-win!

Put some feelers out for guest appearances on podcasts that have audiences full of your potentially ideal clients – these are an awesome opportunity to demonstrate expertise while reaching new potential clients. Plus you’ll get a nice backlink (i.e. a positive signal for your website’s SEO).

Speaking engagements are another great way to widen your circle and get in front of aligned, new people. Whether at conferences or virtual summits, events like this offer golden opportunities for exposure and networking.

If public speaking isn’t really up your alley (most of us, am I right?), why not reach out to potential referral partners? This is when you both send each other potential clients. If you’re a life coach, for example, you could partner up with a health coach. Or if you’re a business coach, you could partner up with a marketing consultant. Referral partners are mutually beneficial relationships, so your partner should be getting something out of it too.

In our digital age where literally anyone can set up shop online, standing out takes strategy. And sometimes that strategy involves linking arms with others who complement what you do so together, you make a bigger impact than going solo. Remember – it’s about making meaningful connections rather than going through the motions.

Increase Profitability in Your Coaching Business

Usually when you think of scaling a business, you don’t really think about increasing profitability in your existing business ecosystem. It’s not always about more clients – enhancing the worth of each client can also scale up your coaching business sustainably and for the long-term.

Offer Automatic, Recurring Billing for Improved Cash Flow

A key way to boost your predicted cash flow and increase profitability involves setting up recurring billing systems for one-on-one coaching clients that already agreed to a set number of months with you. QuickBooks, for example, or even Stripe itself provide tools to help businesses with this.

With a reliable automatic payment system set up, payments are processed automatically every month (or whatever period works best). This simplifies cash inflows (and reduces what the client has to do!), and makes sure there are fewer missed or late payments from clients. As an added bonus: it saves you time chasing invoices.

It’s crucial to keep in mind that the client should absolutely 100% be aware of any payments that’ll be taken from them automatically. This language should be in your standard coaching contract as well as just communicated when they’re signing. This transparency gets rid of any confusion or misunderstanding. And then you have written, tangible proof if there are any disputes later!

Pricing Models That Increase Profitability

Profit may sound like a dirty word to some, but it’s essential to a successful business. You may need to rethink your pricing model if you want to truly scale up. One avenue could be through tiered packages – offering different levels of coaching support at varying price points caters better towards potential clients with diverse needs and budgets.

Another route might be really doubling down on workshops and group coaching programs. These allow you to do one-to-many instead of one-to-one at the same time, maximizing your profit per hour. This is a highly effective way to make more per hour, especially as a coach because your main service (one-on-one) coaching is maxed out at how much you can charge per hour (unless, of course, you’re extremely in-demand and can charge high prices).

So, scaling your coaching business won’t happen overnight. It honestly will take strategic planning, detailed brainstorming, commitment, and patience. But it’s very much possible and probable.

You haven’t built your business to this point just to stay at this point, right? Something is calling you to more. Now it’s time to put these insights into action; set sail towards growth in the dynamic world of coaching businesses!