5 Principles for scaling your coaching business

Want to break away from the limitations of a one-on-one only coaching business?

If you do then you are already well aware of the revenue ceiling that any services business hits when they run out of time in the day to service any more clients.

Want to calculate how much more revenue you can achieve with a scalable business model? Check out the revenue calculator at the bottom of our blog post here

Breaking away from the one-on-one coaching model is a challenge. But when done right, the shift in focus to the one-to-many model not only amplifies your reach and impact, but it also optimizes your earning potential. Let's break down some key principles that will guide your transition.

Read the full post or listen to the audio version on our podcast

1. Continuous Skill Enhancement

Scaling a coaching business is going to be difficult, but with the right combination of knowledge and skills, it can be achieved. Successful scaling requires not only a deep understanding of coaching but also proficiency in business skills such as marketing, networking, and scalability.

In addition to honing your coaching skills, it's essential to stay up-to-date with trends and developments in these areas to deliver value and optimize your earning potential. Consider taking courses or workshops related to marketing and scalability to supplement your coaching knowledge and improve your business strategy.

A good place to start is our mini marketing course for endurance coaches, it’s a simple course delivered by email to kick start your learning. You can get signed up here.

2. Strategic Delegation

As your client base grows, it is important to ensure that your team or resources grow along with it. One effective way to do this is through delegation or outsourcing. Start by identifying tasks that take up a significant amount of your time but can be performed by others. This may include tasks such as responding to emails, creating social media content, or scheduling appointments.

One of the biggest challenges that arises with delegation is affordability, especially during the growth phase of your business. Most endurance coaching businesses cannot afford to employ full-time staff to handle these tasks. However, there are other options available. For example, hiring a virtual assistant (VA) who can work remotely and handle these tasks on an as-needed basis. Or, you could leverage platforms such as Upwork or Fiverr to find freelancers who can take over these tasks at a relatively low cost, freeing up your time to focus on coaching and other high-priority tasks.

By getting lower impact tasks off your plate, you can free up your time but also ensure that your clients receive the best possible support. This can lead to higher client satisfaction, increased word-of-mouth referrals, and ultimately, continued business growth.

Do you think you need a VA? check out our post on this here.

3. Community Building

Creating a thriving community among your athletes is key to retaining them in a one-to-many model. This approach not only helps to build trust and a sense of belonging, but also fosters peer learning and sharing. By encouraging your athletes to interact with each other, they are able to learn from their peers and share their own experiences. This not only helps to strengthen the bond between athletes but also provides a valuable support system.

To cultivate this culture, you can use tools. While platforms like Training Tilt Social Groups, Facebook Groups, Discord or Slack can be helpful, it's ultimately the culture that you foster that will make the biggest difference. Encouraging your athletes to participate in group activities such as team challenges, group workouts, and social events can also help to strengthen the sense of community.

It's worth noting that while clients may initially seek out coaching, it's often the sense of community that keeps them coming back. By providing a supportive environment where athletes can learn from you and your coaches but also from each other, you can create a loyal following that will not only benefit from your coaching, but also from the support and inspiration of their peers.

4. Embrace the Right Tech

The importance of technology in coaching cannot be understated, especially when it comes to reaching a wider audience. Although platforms like TrainingPeaks have their own merits in terms of one-on-one coaching, they don't quite measure up when it comes to scaling up. The reason isn't that the software is inadequate, but rather, it wasn't specifically designed to cater to the needs of coaches who aim to build a scalable coaching business.

That's where Training Tilt comes in. Unlike any other endurance coaching software, Training Tilt was developed with scalability in mind, featuring self-service training plans and payments, group cohort coaching, and community features. Our main goal is to provide coaches with all the necessary tools they need to create, manage, grow, and scale their coaching businesses without any limits.

Some of our coaches use both TrainingPeaks and Training Tilt for their coaching needs. While some prefer using TrainingPeaks for one-on-one coaching and Training Tilt for group coaching and self-service training plans, others use Training Tilt for both. At Training Tilt, we understand the importance of using the right tools for the right job, and we are dedicated to providing coaches with the necessary support to succeed in the ever-evolving world of coaching.

You can sign up to a free trial of Training Tilt here.

5. Adopt Automated Group Coaching Programs

As a coach, it's important to reach and provide the best coaching experience to as many clients as possible. However, one-on-one coaching models limit scaling your business. Automated group coaching programs solve this problem and are crucial for coaches to achieve optimal growth.

Automated group coaching programs are more scalable than one-on-one coaching models. They allow coaches to train multiple clients simultaneously without compromising the quality of the coaching experience. This leads to more clients, increased revenue, and faster business growth.

Automated group coaching programs are also more efficient than one-on-one coaching models. Shared objectives in group training programs create cohesion among athletes and make coaching more efficient. This results in less time spent on administrative tasks and more time coaching, leading to better results for clients.

Training Tilt is a platform that offers self-service training plans and payments, group coaching, and community features designed to help coaches build a scalable business. With Training Tilt, coaches can automate group coaching and focus on coaching and growing their business.

You can learn more about the benefits of group coaching in our detailed blog post here. 8 Reasons to move from one on one to a group coaching focus.

6. Embrace the Suck: Doing Things You don’t Want to Do

Coaching is a passion, Coaches enjoy helping others achieve their goals and reach their full potential. However, when it comes to scaling a coaching business, coaches will inevitably face challenges that may not be a natural fit for them. Some of these challenges include writing, being in from of a video camera, delegation and outsourcing, and learning marketing and sales.

Many coaches believe that they can outsource everything they don't like doing, but in reality, that approach almost always fails. While it's true that outsourcing can be a useful strategy for freeing up time and focusing on core coaching activities, it's also important to recognize that some tasks require a personal touch or a deep understanding of the business, which may not be possible to achieve through outsourcing.

Coaches who want to scale their businesses must learn to embrace the "suck" and do things they don't want to do. This may mean investing time and energy into learning new skills, such as writing or marketing, or simply forcing themselves to tackle tasks that they find unpleasant. These challenges are not unique to coaching businesses, and many entrepreneurs face similar obstacles when scaling their companies. I experience this exact same problem, the things that will move the needle in our businesses the most are almost always the things we just don’t want to do.

Making the switch from one-on-one to one-to-many coaching isn't simple or straightforward. It's a challenge that demands planning, hard work, discomfort and a lot of patience. But if you follow these guidelines and stay focused, you can successfully scale up your business and increase both your impact and income.