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189 | How I Built a £200K+ Coaching Business Around My Life · Women in The Coaching Arena

• 0:00
  Speaker: I think there's a massive gap between what the coaching industry tells you about how quickly you can replace your income and the reality.
• 0:08
  Speaker: Honestly, it's quite dangerous because people can quit their job thinking that they're gonna be on 100K in six months, and then get in all sorts of extra stress.
• 0:19
  Speaker: If we have these crazy expectations, we often think we're failing even when we're doing quite well.
• 0:27
  Speaker: I had this with a client recently who's just in year two of her business, and she had made something like £70,000 in one year from her coaching business.
• 0:39
  Speaker: That's amazing.
• 0:41
  Speaker: Yet she didn't know it was amazing.
• 0:43
  Speaker: She thought she was failing.
• 0:45
  Speaker: She thought it should be higher.
• 0:47
  Speaker: So that's what we'll talk about in today's episode.
• 0:50
  Speaker: Hi, welcome back to Women in the Coaching Arena.
• 0:53
  Speaker: I am Jo Lott.
• 0:54
  Speaker: Today I'm gonna share my actual coaching income timeline, not a vague, "It took a while," but the real numbers as much as I can remember them, because I think you deserve to see what it actually looks like on
• 1:10
  Speaker: the journey to a successful six-figure coaching business.
• 1:15
  Speaker: Let's talk about the usual income timeline from qualified to paid clients.
• 1:21
  Speaker: You will often see ads that say, "Make six figures in your first year of your coaching business."
• 1:27
  Speaker: You may see people posting screenshots of their Stripe dashboard showing £10,000 months, and you will see coaches who have been in business for six months telling you that they've cracked the code to success.
• 1:40
  Speaker: And some of that might be true.
• 1:42
  Speaker: I'm not saying that people are lying, but most of the time they are the outlier, not the norm.
• 1:50
  Speaker: And what we often don't hear is what they already had in place prior to starting that business.
• 1:56
  Speaker: Did they already have really great relationships with people?
• 2:01
  Speaker: Were they already well-known in their field?
• 2:04
  Speaker: Did they have a partner who was covering the mortgage and the bills while they built up their business?
• 2:10
  Speaker: Context matters.
• 2:11
  Speaker: It's almost always missing from those kind of posts.
• 2:16
  Speaker: A realistic timeline for most coaches, and I've worked with over 200 coaches now, so this is a lot of data to draw on, is that it takes two to three years to build a sustainable coaching business that consistently
• 2:31
  Speaker: replaces a professional income.
• 2:34
  Speaker: I know that that's not sexy, but it is honest.
• 2:37
  Speaker: So let's talk about my actual timeline.
• 2:40
  Speaker: When I left my job working in HR to train as a coach, I took on three part-time jobs on the side because I was far too worried about being unemployed that I thought I needed some income coming in,
• 2:56
  Speaker: and I did, 'cause I needed to clearly pay the mortgage.
• 2:59
  Speaker: But it just shows you that I didn't just quit and think I could have coaching to cover my mortgage.
• 3:06
  Speaker: I took on a HR contract role.
• 3:10
  Speaker: I took on a clerking role at the local school for 10 pounds an hour.
• 3:15
  Speaker: I did another admin job at a coach training organization for also around 10 or 15 pounds an hour, which was obviously my big turning point because then I did that admin work in exchange for paying the 4,000 or
• 3:29
  Speaker: 5,000 pounds for my ILM level seven in executive coaching and mentoring.
• 3:36
  Speaker: That qualification took me around nine or 10 months of working to pay off.
• 3:42
  Speaker: Looking back now, I should have just paid the money and freed up my time.
• 3:46
  Speaker: Little did I know.
• 3:47
  Speaker: At the same time as this, I had a one-year-old and a three-year-old, and just two days of childcare per week.
• 3:54
  Speaker: And when I say days, I mean from 10:00 till 2:00, so it's not really a day at all.
• 3:59
  Speaker: So I was juggling three part-time jobs, two tiny children, training as a coach, and trying to build my business And I honestly do look back and think, "My goodness, how did I ever do that?"
• 4:14
  Speaker: But that's exactly how I know when people say that they haven't got the time to build their coaching business, that actually you can make the time.
• 4:23
  Speaker: Somehow I made the time.
• 4:26
  Speaker: So you can do amazing things if you are committed and you really want to do them.
• 4:32
  Speaker: First six months after leaving my job was zero coaching income.
• 4:36
  Speaker: Nothing at all.
• 4:37
  Speaker: I was training, I was working those three jobs and building my business from scratch, posting on LinkedIn.
• 4:43
  Speaker: Nothing was happening.
• 4:44
  Speaker: Then I moved into my first full year in business.
• 4:47
  Speaker: So I essentially left my previous job just before the summer, so that first six months nothing happened.
• 4:53
  Speaker: My first proper year in business, I did manage to match my previous part-time salary, which felt enormous at the time.
• 5:03
  Speaker: So I think that was around £25,000 for that first year, which was my previous part-time salary, 'cause I had these young kids.
• 5:12
  Speaker: So that was pretty insane, in all honesty, that I managed to do that.
• 5:17
  Speaker: I know it doesn't sound like big bucks, but what I know from working with hundreds of coaches is that that is actually really good to get that sort of money in part-time hours in your first proper year of
• 5:29
  Speaker: business.
• 5:30
  Speaker: Okay, so year two was a bit higher.
• 5:33
  Speaker: I'm wishing I could remember the exact figures.
• 5:36
  Speaker: I maybe...
• 5:38
  Speaker: Did I double it?
• 5:38
  Speaker: I was trying to double my previous income.
• 5:41
  Speaker: I might have doubled it at that point.
• 5:44
  Speaker: Year three, I definitely didn't double it, so I think maybe year two I doubled that 25K.
• 5:51
  Speaker: Year three I got a tiny bit more, and it felt really good, but I was also really scared of the VAT threshold, so that's 90,000.
• 6:00
  Speaker: So I didn't really want to double it, because I was nervous to go over the VAT threshold.
• 6:07
  Speaker: By year four, I realized that I just needed to go over the VAT threshold, and there was nothing I could do, and eventually, you know, I would have to put my prices up by 20% to incorporate the VAT.
• 6:19
  Speaker: So it was probably the last two years, I would say, of my five or six-year business journey.
• 6:25
  Speaker: I never know whether to count when I was training and when I had no clients as part of my business journey, but I would probably say it's probably five years since paying clients.
• 6:35
  Speaker: But things really took off in the last two to three years, maybe two years, since I launched the podcast, because I really built a good, deep workflow around it.
• 6:45
  Speaker: So I record the podcast, it becomes an SEO blog which attracts traffic on Google.
• 6:51
  Speaker: I then make an email out of it, a social post out of it, and then everything flows from this one piece of deep content.
• 6:58
  Speaker: And suddenly I had a deep marketing ecosystem which builds trust and really converts super well without me having to do so much extra work to build that trust.
• 7:12
  Speaker: Last year, my business turned over more than 200,000 pounds, so I'm a multi six-figure business owner as of last year, which felt really strange.
• 7:21
  Speaker: I think I was about 10,000 pounds over the 200K mark, and this year should be even better.
• 7:28
  Speaker: But honestly, sales are easy now because I have five years of backup.
• 7:33
  Speaker: I've been running my program nearly five years.
• 7:35
  Speaker: I have 40-plus case studies I have three years plus of weekly podcasting, and so I don't need to sell anymore.
• 7:45
  Speaker: People buy my services without really having to go through that, but that is because your marketing is doing the heavy lifting.
• 7:53
  Speaker: So this is why I love marketing.
• 7:56
  Speaker: So never underestimate how powerful it is to market your business deeply, because it saves a lot of hard work down the line.
• 8:05
  Speaker: But it did take years, and a system, and a lot of consistency and learning.
• 8:11
  Speaker: So here's what I would say the average journey might look like.
• 8:15
  Speaker: Maybe month one to three, I would be aiming for your first paying clients.
• 8:20
  Speaker: Sometimes you might get one at a super low rate.
• 8:24
  Speaker: The goal isn't always full income straightaway.
• 8:27
  Speaker: It's just proof that real humans will pay you for coaching.
• 8:31
  Speaker: That is massive.
• 8:32
  Speaker: Don't skip past that important milestone.
• 8:35
  Speaker: Celebrate it properly.
• 8:37
  Speaker: Hopefully, you may have had that in your first three to four months of business, maybe sooner, maybe later.
• 8:43
  Speaker: Maybe month four to six, you are starting to get more inquiries.
• 8:47
  Speaker: Maybe you're getting more visible.
• 8:49
  Speaker: People are starting to find you, or people you've warmed up earlier maybe start to come back to you.
• 8:57
  Speaker: This is probably still quite ambitious, because in this first six months, you're often behind the scenes building a website, nurture sequence, email list, LinkedIn profile.
• 9:08
  Speaker: So everybody's timeline is different, but just as a rough idea.
• 9:12
  Speaker: Okay, let's move on to month six to 12.
• 9:15
  Speaker: You know what you're doing now.
• 9:17
  Speaker: You are starting to build much more authority.
• 9:19
  Speaker: You're starting to trust yourself a bit more to be you in your content.
• 9:24
  Speaker: You might start to approach organizations or get some real money coming in.
• 9:30
  Speaker: Maybe now you are raising your prices a little bit and starting to get referrals from anybody you have worked with previously.
• 9:39
  Speaker: Month 12 to 24, if you are incredibly lucky, maybe you are matching or exceeding your previous income.
• 9:47
  Speaker: Depends obviously what that was, and your audience may be growing, your reputation is building, and maybe you have a system that works.
• 9:55
  Speaker: Again, this is top end, in all honesty.
• 9:58
  Speaker: This is if you have had a lot of support, you've done a lot of learnings, you've probably had a business coach, and you've really shown up big time to build your business.
• 10:08
  Speaker: So this is the kind of rosy picture, and even though it doesn't seem very rosy compared to what most business coaches are showing you online.
• 10:17
  Speaker: 'Cause for the majority of coaches, it takes longer if you hadn't got a network previously.
• 10:22
  Speaker: It can take a long time for people to really know you online and trust you enough to come and work with you.
• 10:29
  Speaker: One of my coaches in my program this week realized she earned 80% of her previous corporate salary at the moment.
• 10:37
  Speaker: That was between her own coaching clients.
• 10:40
  Speaker: She also has associate work, and she also took on a contract as well.
• 10:45
  Speaker: I'm trying to remember what sort of contract, but it wasn't coaching, but it was kind of similar work So you can build up your former income, but often it's a mix of coaching and a few other things as
• 10:58
  Speaker: well.
• 10:59
  Speaker: I saw an article from one of my former clients, Louise, this week, who shared in the article that she earned 9,000 pounds in her first year of business.
• 11:10
  Speaker: She was obviously wanting to match her previous income, which was a six-figure job, and she now said, I think she's been going about three, four years now, but in the article she said she was earning multi high five
• 11:24
  Speaker: figures aiming for 100K now.
• 11:27
  Speaker: So that was roughly three s- three or so years ago, I suppose, she worked with me in the business of coaching.
• 11:34
  Speaker: So it takes time, but that trajectory is real and good.
• 11:41
  Speaker: But just a quick note, if you are in the UK, I think 100K is like the worst income you could ever target for, because after you get to 90K, you have to put your prices up by 20% to
• 11:53
  Speaker: cover that.
• 11:54
  Speaker: So unless you are selling to organizations, I would either stay just below the 90K or I would be trying to get well past it to 120K, because your sales, if you are selling to individuals, will slow down when
• 12:09
  Speaker: you have to put your prices up by 20%.
• 12:12
  Speaker: So it's just a really tricky time, which is why I avoided it for so long, but then I aimed for the 120 to know that I could cover any people that weren't signing up because my prices were suddenly
• 12:22
  Speaker: 20% more expensive.
• 12:25
  Speaker: So do celebrate every milestone, not just those big ones.
• 12:29
  Speaker: Celebrate your first inquiry, your first paying client, your first 1,000 pound month.
• 12:36
  Speaker: Every tiny step of the way, just give yourself that credit.
• 12:40
  Speaker: Don't wait until you reach your previous income to celebrate, because I honestly don't think you will ever get there unless you celebrate all of these small wins, because the key to business is keeping going long enough to actually
• 12:54
  Speaker: get there.
• 12:54
  Speaker: So here's what I want you to know.
• 12:56
  Speaker: If you are in a full-time job, don't quit, not yet.
• 13:00
  Speaker: Build your coaching business alongside it, unless you genuinely don't need the money and can pay your bills without.
• 13:07
  Speaker: Yes, you will be tired.
• 13:08
  Speaker: Yes, you're gonna be working evenings, weekends, every single moment you can, but you're gonna be building from stability, not desperation.
• 13:17
  Speaker: And that is what changes how you show up.
• 13:20
  Speaker: If you can go part-time in your job and make this transition slow, even better.
• 13:25
  Speaker: This is how I did it, because I genuinely needed to pay my bills.
• 13:29
  Speaker: We didn't have enough from my husband's job to cover the mortgage and everything, so I was just a bit more risk-averse.
• 13:36
  Speaker: But I have had lots of other clients who have just quit and gone all in on their business, and I do sometimes think- Doing that makes you make it work because it has to work.
• 13:48
  Speaker: So it just depends, doesn't it?
• 13:50
  Speaker: You have to find your own way depending on your own personal circumstances.
• 13:55
  Speaker: If you have already quit your job and you're needing the income, then associate coaching can really help.
• 14:01
  Speaker: That might be with big companies like Esra, BetterUp, Genius Within, although in all honesty, the last time I checked, most of those were full, so it might be looking for smaller organizations that are looking for associate coaches.
• 14:17
  Speaker: So the benefit of associate coaching is that you get clients given to you without you having to do the marketing.
• 14:24
  Speaker: Yes, that means at a lot lower rate because they will be taking the premium rate because they're doing the hard job of marketing to get those clients.
• 14:33
  Speaker: But it really is a nice way of getting some money in, practicing your coaching, and just having some small bit of stability.
• 14:41
  Speaker: I was really lucky to get associate coaching roles when I started my business with two small providers, and it was just so nice to have occasional calls book in my calendar without me kind of doing the hard slog
• 14:57
  Speaker: to get those clients.
• 14:58
  Speaker: But like I say, the market has got busier, so those associate opportunities are harder to find now.
• 15:04
  Speaker: But if you can find them, it's a lovely way to combine that work with your coaching practice.
• 15:10
  Speaker: So I don't want this episode to end in a depressing way because while the timeline is, for most people, longer than we would like, there are things that you can genuinely do to speed it up.
• 15:23
  Speaker: I'm sure if you've listened to this before, it will be no surprise to hear that getting clear on your niche is usually the top way.
• 15:30
  Speaker: Every month you spend trying to coach everyone is a month wasted in your business.
• 15:37
  Speaker: All of the effort that's gone into your marketing is usually wasted for most coaches I've seen that are trying to serve everyone.
• 15:47
  Speaker: And I honestly think if you can't commit to your ideal client, then why should your client commit to you?
• 15:55
  Speaker: So there is so many reasons why niching helps.
• 15:59
  Speaker: So this is why I've always invested in business coaches, mentors, like so many right from the start of my business, and I'm always still in programs now learning more and more.
• 16:11
  Speaker: Because it's not just about getting a podcast out there, it's actually being good at podcasting and then thinking about how can you get people to actually listen to your podcast.
• 16:22
  Speaker: There is so much more involved that we don't realize.
• 16:26
  Speaker: So my best advice is commit to being an absolute expert at your business, not just the coaching side.
• 16:34
  Speaker: That deep marketing is where the magic happens, but that does take time and skill.
• 16:39
  Speaker: Finally, I've just touched on this a little bit, but invest in support.
• 16:44
  Speaker: I know I'm biased here because I run a program, but honestly, I would not be here in my business right now if I hadn't invested in endless business coaches, coaches, support, help, whatever.
• 16:58
  Speaker: You need to invest to be able to reap the rewards back.
• 17:02
  Speaker: And all of the time you spend going round in circles often means that you're gonna end up at a desperate point where you just need to go get a job.
• 17:11
  Speaker: Whereas use that time wisely, learn everything you need to learn, get the help to really fast-track that time, and you will have far more likely success of actually building a business.
• 17:23
  Speaker: Finally, be willing to do the messy middle.
• 17:26
  Speaker: This is the bit where your offer isn't quite landing, your website isn't great, maybe your niche isn't perfect, your content feels a bit clunky, you're learning as you go.
• 17:38
  Speaker: And most people just think, "Ah, this is just so frustrating," and they quit in this messy middle Because maybe you're comparing your first month to somebody's five years in.
• 17:51
  Speaker: Don't do that.
• 17:53
  Speaker: I saw a client do exactly that this week and say, "I just want to be where you are.
• 17:59
  Speaker: I don't know how you're doing it.
• 18:01
  Speaker: How do you manage to do all this stuff?"
• 18:02
  Speaker: And she was so frustrated, and the problem is she's one month in to her business.
• 18:09
  Speaker: I've practiced so many more times than she's practiced now, so it's just not a fair comparison that she's doing there for herself, because I was exactly where she was one month in.
• 18:20
  Speaker: In fact, I was a lot worse off than where she was one month in, because she's already got a niche, she's got an offer, she's booked five market research calls all within her first month of her business.
• 18:31
  Speaker: As you know, if you've listened to this episode or other episodes, I spent a lot longer than that faffing around before anything really was going on in my business.
• 18:40
  Speaker: And just keep showing up consistently.
• 18:42
  Speaker: People are watching, even if they're not ready to buy yet.
• 18:47
  Speaker: Here is the question that every new coach needs to ask themselves.
• 18:50
  Speaker: Let's have the honest conversation here, which is, are you building a business or are you building a hobby?
• 18:57
  Speaker: Both are absolutely fine.
• 18:59
  Speaker: If you want a few coaching clients on the side and a bit of extra income, that's absolutely fine.
• 19:05
  Speaker: But if you do want a business, I would suggest making a decision that this will be a business, and an actual money-generating business.
• 19:14
  Speaker: Otherwise, it really isn't a business at all.
• 19:17
  Speaker: If you do want a business, that means investing your time and energy in marketing.
• 19:23
  Speaker: It means having uncomfortable conversations about money, showing up on the days when you don't feel like it, just like you would've showed up in your job when you didn't feel like it.
• 19:33
  Speaker: And it means being patient, properly patient, not I'll give it three months patient, and then if it doesn't work by then, I will give up.
• 19:42
  Speaker: Because I have had people before that have worked with me with that attitude of, "This is my last ditch attempt.
• 19:49
  Speaker: If it doesn't work by three months' time, I'm quitting."
• 19:53
  Speaker: And I always think, you might as well quit now, because with that attitude, it's highly unlikely to work for you, because you're already planning for the failure.
• 20:04
  Speaker: You're already planning to go back to your job.
• 20:07
  Speaker: And whilst I know practically sometimes we need to do those things- I still think mindset-wise, it's not a strong foundation to build from.
• 20:16
  Speaker: The coaches who will succeed are definitely not more talented than you.
• 20:21
  Speaker: They're not smarter than you.
• 20:23
  Speaker: They just kept going.
• 20:25
  Speaker: So here's what you can do this week.
• 20:27
  Speaker: Write out your actual financial picture.
• 20:30
  Speaker: Think about what you need to earn and how long you've got.
• 20:34
  Speaker: Like, have you got savings?
• 20:36
  Speaker: What's the baseline?
• 20:38
  Speaker: What would be enough for you?
• 20:40
  Speaker: So I know when I started my business, I worked out how much I was earning in London, then I took off my travel and took off the extra childcare that I wouldn't be paying anymore, and I literally just
• 20:53
  Speaker: got down to essentially the exact same, which was a lot lower than that salary because I took off all of those travel and different things, to try and make it feel achievable for me.
• 21:05
  Speaker: So just give yourself that absolute baseline, then go for a good target, and then go for an even better target, and see where you get to.
• 21:13
  Speaker: If you want a clearer picture on exactly what stage you are at in your coaching business, then do take my CEO scorecard quiz.
• 21:22
  Speaker: You will be assessed across nine areas of your business in less than four minutes, and you will get a personalized result on what stage of business you are at right now and where you should focus next.
• 21:35
  Speaker: You will find the link in the description or the show notes.
• 21:38
  Speaker: If this was helpful, please do share this with a coach who needs to hear this honest timeline, because I do think there is not enough honesty out there, especially with regards to the money.
• 21:49
  Speaker: I hope this was helpful, and like I always say, trust yourself, believe in yourself, and be the wise gardener who keeps on watering the seeds.