I have had a business as a movement therapist for over fifteen years, and it has only been the last five years that I have shifted into a coaching paradigm with my business. The last 5-10 years have also seen explosive growth in the coaching industry. I have loved integrating the coaching model into how I work with clients to encourage their ability to be self-changers and visionaries in their own lives. But as the online world has grown, building a “coaching business” seems to be more and more about scaling, developing funnels, and creating brands than it is about mastering the art of supporting transformation.

For several years, I jumped on the wheel and tried to do “all of the things” to build an online coaching business, and I struggled to figure out what to focus on to grow online. But my business was still paying the bills, and I was still helping clients…clients whom I have been supporting through their health and wellness change process for over ten years.

I realized client relationships and retention were critical to my business growth and stability. And rather than focusing on getting “more clients,” I should look at how I retained my current ones and what was working.

This got me thinking about the numbers that matter in my business. While I have never run Facebook ads, and I don’t have a ton of social media followers. Sometimes, I am not regular with sending out my email newsletter. Still, I have always created consistent action and tracked my numbers in a few key areas that are foundational to launching and sustaining a coaching business that brings you joy and transforms lives.

Bottom Line

What is the bottom line income # you need to make to “feel okay”- I have always known the bottom line number that I needed to pay all of my bills, save a little, and allow my nervous system to relax enough that I could get down to actually helping my clients and not worry about whether I would be able to pay the bills.

Program Length

How can you design and charge for your programs in a way that supports long-term change and creates recurring revenue to meet “your bottom line number”? Research shows that most people need at least six months or more to change their habits and then potentially ongoing support to continue their change process. I have seen this play out in my business as people may come to me for a pain issue and then work with me for years to support and evolve the changes they want to make in their health and well-being.

Designing my programs to support this creates supportive long-term relationships that increase my client success rates and also create continued revenue streams in my business and low client turnover. This means I spend most of my time working with clients and less chasing the next lead. So, you want to find a number of months for your coaching program that supports their change process and creates a long-term revenue stream for you.

Number of Clients You Need to Meet Your Bottom Line

Know how many clients you need to fill your recurring revenue programs, meet your bottom line, and prioritize this. So once you know your bottom line and have designed your programs to support your clients over six months or more, you can quickly figure out how many clients you need to always have in your long-term programs to meet your bottom line. Say you need to make 5k/mo and charge $500/mo for a 12-month coaching program; then you need ten clients in your program per year.

Massive Benefits

Investing in this model can help you get up and running quickly with your business, and it can help you sustain your business over the long haul. Finding ten clients can happen more easily through referrals, networking, and speaking without even entering the online marketing world. Once you have a solid base of clients invested in long-term change, you can focus on growing your business from a place of “already having enough” and set your intentions on how to serve more people, create more impact, and make more money in a way that allows you to be at your best, grow and give back to your business.

Get Started

So, how do you get started with this model? You need crystal clarity on your purpose with your clients and what change process you are supporting your clients to move through. With that in place, creating and evolving coaching structures that keep you and your clients will naturally help you evolve and sustain your business. If you need support tuning into your deeper purpose with your coaching work, check out my free guide below, and my coaching programs.

Cheering you on,