Build a $100K/Year Realistic Coaching Business with Integrity and Genuine Service – No Paid Ads Required

Introduction

I have two reasons for writing this book. One is self-serving, the other altruistic.

At the end of this book, I will promote my coach-training program. This book acts as a way of both attracting and qualifying potential candidates for this program. However, as I only accept a maximum of TWO people per year into this training, this book is mostly written for the second reason:

I feel bad for new coaches. 

There is so much crap out there, designed to sucker in desperate wannabe-coaches. It is such a difficult business to do well, especially if you’re not just trying to find an easy way to make money and you actually want to help people.

I want to help you cut through the noise and hype online about how this business works. All those promises of big cash and tonnes of glory are just marketing garbage written by people who don’t even coach real clients, and don’t know how to build this type of business without preying on vulnerable new coaches.

This book will give you the complete foundation you need to take a coaching business from zero to full-time income. I’m not promising riches beyond your wildest dreams with some quick-fix nonsense. I’m talking about a realistic and authentic methodology based on sound business principles that a person who’s patient and determined can use to build a real coaching practice.

This book is for anyone who’s in a service-based business, like coaching, consulting, personal training, nutritionist, business mentoring, tarot cards… anything where YOU are the product. This book assumes you have healthy motives for getting into this work, and that you are at least already trying to get it going. This book will also apply to people who have already been doing this for a while but are struggling to make it work (you might have to “start over” to some extent).

If you don’t know me…

Skip this section if you already know who I am etc.

I’m Dan Munro. Born and raised in New Zealand, and currently living with my wife Lucie and daughter Chloe in my new home in the Czech Republic. I love heavy metal, chess, philosophy, ice baths, and science fiction.

I’ve been coaching since 2013, full time. Prior to that I worked in the Department of Corrections rehabilitating criminals and managing staff. After a while, I decided I most enjoyed the coaching elements of my job, and would prefer to work with people who didn’t hate me.

I started out calling myself a “Success Coach” and trying to help corporate people climb the ladder. After just a few months, I found myself constantly talking about people-pleasing, something I was intimately familiar with from my own life experience suffering from Nice Guy Syndrome.

Eventually, I found my niche: people pleasers and Nice Guys who wanted to live with integrity and grow their self-confidence. I honed in on that specific issue and have been mastering it ever since.

In my first year as a coach I made about $25K in total. Every year since, my revenue increased by about 20%, and I now have crossed the 6-figure mark. More importantly, I LOVE the people I work with and would do this for free if it were possible. I no longer have to “reach out” for clients, they come to me.

I’ve been through over $150K worth of coach and business training. Some of it was great, some of it was completely garbage. Partly I’m writing this book to help you skip that pointless waste of money and go straight for what works in real life.

My “marketing” is content-based – most of my clients come to me from my videos and podcast. However, at the beginning I did all my client creation in person, running a twice-weekly meetup group and approaching people everywhere I could to start the conversation. So I’ve tried all the ways of doing it and found what works for people who prefer online as well as in-person.

While I have played with paid advertising, I’ve found it to be unnecessary for a one-person coaching operation. While ads can be helpful, this book will give you everything you need to build your business with minimal expense – the apps and tools I recommend throughout this book are helpful and time-saving but not required. You can use this book to do it all yourself without spending anything.

This book will also work if you don’t have a large network or audience already in place. Unlike many coaches, very little of my business comes from referrals. I started with little to no network, no reputation or audience, and no clue what I was doing. It still worked out.

So get straight into it. Use what works and discard what doesn’t. And if you feel anything is missing, get in touch for the solution dan@brojo.org

Starting a coaching or service business: Plan for the first 90 days

This is as simple as it can get when it comes to starting a service-based business, like being a coach, consultant, therapist, masseuse, personal trainer, financial advisor, nutritionist, web designer etc.

This is for people yet to start, or have just gotten started and feel lost, or even those who have been doing it for a while but can’t seem to get off the ground. Note: if you already have been trying for a while but getting poor results, we’ll be covering common mistakes soon.

I’ll keep this simple, and later in this book I’ll also recommend my favourite business books for new service entrepreneurs.

In brief

Basically, you are going to get your business off the ground by learning how to find leads, reaching out to them personally one at a time, offering them your service, selling it to them (without money being involved at first), delivering the service, and then getting feedback and a testimonial/review.

If you can complete this entire process, then you have the basic foundation for running a successful service-based business. This process won’t cost you anything but time, and so at first you won’t need to worry about paid ads, websites, marketing training, or even having to find “cold leads” who don’t know you at all.

If you can make some hours available and find the courage to face a few potential rejections, then you have everything you need already. In fact, you may never need to add any paid ads or other expensive methods if you don’t want to in the future. This methodology can take you all the way up to 6 figures per year and beyond!

Warning!

If you’re just doing this for the money, I can’t help you. I’m looking to help people who want the perfect combination of meaningfulness, integrity, and making a decent income… in that order.

If you just wanna make money, go learn to be an investment banker or real estate agent or drug dealer. It will be easier and more likely to succeed.

Create an Offer

Perfectionism can wait at the door, we need to get moving. So from this point onwards, consider everything to just be a draft, not the final form. You’ll publish and then perfect it, not the other way around.

I promise you: whatever you get started with will change over time. So there’s no point in trying to get it “right” at this time. Aim for “good enough” instead. In fact, you won’t know what is actually good until after you try to get it out there in the real world, so please don’t overthink this.

Spend no more than 1 hour on this following task. Whatever you have by the end of that hour is what you’ll move forward with. But also don’t rush. Make sure you at least meet all the criteria I talk about here.

You need an “offer” to present to your first/next batch of potential clients. An offer is a simple summary of the service you’ll be providing. You can dive deeper into this topic later when you have more experience, but for now we simply need to fill out this offer template:

The [program name] for [specific client type] to [result they will get] within [timeframe]

Name your service, something that focuses on the benefit for the client.

Don’t just say what you do, such as coaching or massage. You must talk about what they get out of it. e.g. Belly Fat Elimination Program, Nice Guy Recovery Program, Public Speaking With Confidence etc.

Note: using the word “program” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s for a group of people; your work might still be 1:1 but we want to avoid people having just a single session. They should be signing up to get enough of your service to ensure a good long term result. If your service is always completed in a single session, then you’re probably not solving a big enough problem to warrant making a business from it.

Then you want to identify who this program is for (it’s never for everyone). Don’t get too hung up on identifying your “niche” – it will self-identify over time as you find your favourite clients and preferred work.

For now, just be specific about who this first program is for. Think about age, gender, and location, as well as situation, context, and psychological profile. E.g. 30+ Dads, C-Suite Executives, Nice Guys and People Pleasers, Stressed Moms in NYC. The more specific the better, but don’t overthink it. Just create a specific enough category so that your people would read it and go “Hey, that’s me!” while the people you don’t want to work with would move past it.

Moving onto the result they will get.

You’re not promising anything more than what your ideal client would get if they put in the work on this program. Think about the end game – where does your client end up in terms of a better life when they’ve completed this program?

Again be as specific as possible without becoming false in your guarantees. Avoid vague results like “better lifestyle” or overzealous promises like “6 pack abs in 6 days”. Think more like: boost your self-confidence; lose at least 1KG or more per week; be brave enough to give a presentation at work; reclaim 10+ hours of free time per week.

And then you give the total timeframe, which is the length of the program you’ll deliver. For now I’d suggest 6-8 weeks, or 12 weeks if absolutely needed – giving you plenty of time to practice without asking too much from someone.

So you should end up with something like:

The Belly Fat Elimination Program for 30+ Dads who want to lose 1Kg or more every week for 8 weeks.

The 6 week Nice Guy Recovery Program for People Pleasing Husbands to 3X Your Assertiveness & Boundary Setting Skills.

The Financial Freedom Masterclass for Boston Medical Professionals: Get a $5K raise within 2 months.

Bonus tip: If you have time, you can add an effort-reducing benefit, usually starting with the word “without”, such as: without having to go to the gym; without causing major conflicts with your wife; without needing to work any extra hours.

6-10 FREE clients

Once you have your offer, your immediate short term goal is to find 6-10 people to deliver this service to in full, for free.

The free part is important to remove your financial shame and fear from this getting-started process, and to reduce the resistance and likelihood of rejection from others. It’s more important that you learn to find people, reach out to them, sign them up, and deliver the program in full, than it is to get paid (for now).

Until you can achieve the delivery of this program to at least 6 people, you won’t even know if there’s a demand for it, or whether you can deliver the results you promise, or if the people you want to work with are who you think they are, etc. This whole process is an experiment, so don’t worry about it going “wrong”. Any results are helpful information and experience.

Instead of charging money, you’ll be asking for feedback and a testimonial or review. So it’s not really “free”, it’s just not paid for with money. They are your test rats, and you can be totally upfront with them about that. You’ll find certain people enjoy being test subjects.

Warm outreach

You’re going to be starting with people you already know, or at least have met or are connected to within one degree of separation. You’ll be contacting them individually (forget social media posting to large audiences).

Let go of limits. This first group can include friends, family members, work colleagues, and that guy in your dance class. They won’t be paying money, so any self-limiting beliefs you have about who’s “appropriate” to have as a client can be dropped and dealt with later.

The frame here is that they are helping you create your business. They’re doing you a favour as well as you helping them.

Take a moment to imagine how many people you’re connected to. Think of family, friends, schoolmates, work colleagues (current and past), and other associates. Think of everyone who’s your “friend” on each of your social media platforms. Think of everyone your friends know that they could connect you to, like their partners and cousins and workmates.

Even if you’re an isolated kind of person, there’s probably at least 100 people you can reach out to before you need to start considering complete strangers.

“Warm” outreach is the process of making contact with people you already know, as opposed to “cold” outreach which is strangers – you don’t need to know about this until there’s no warm outreach people left at all… which almost never happens. However, if this indeed has happened, I cover cold leads briefly at the end of this chapter.

What you are going to do next is reach out to as many people as you can until you find your 6 or more test rats.

Start with the people who fit the client ideal in your offer.

It’s really simple: either in person (more effective) or online (less scary), you’re going to approach each person and ask if you can run something past them. If they respond positively, you’re going to make them an offer.

It will look something like this:

“Hey John, can I run something past you? I’m currently experimenting with a free program to test my new business idea, and wanted to see if you are keen to be one of my test subjects – it’s aimed at active dads like you.”

“OK, what’s it about?”

“Cool! I’m looking at starting my own personal training biz, but I want to first run a free test program in exchange for feedback and testimonials. The program is called ‘The Belly Fat Elimination Program for 30+ year old Dads who want to lose average of 1Kg or more every week for 8 weeks’. Sound like something you would be interested in?”

“Sure, sounds good!” 

“Thanks mate! Let’s book a quick call and I’ll tell you how it will work. Much appreciated”

Or he says No…

“No worries, thanks for considering it. Who else do you know that might be keen? I’d love if you could connect me with other potential testers”

Expect a low response rate. It’s ok if only a few people get back to you, and even less are keen. This is all part of the learning process.

Lead > Conversation > Form > Call > Sale > Fulfillment

The simple process for creating clients is to find someone (lead), connect with them and begin a conversation, ask them to fill out an application form (and/or have a phone conversation to answer some questions), sign them up (sales), and then deliver the program to their satisfaction and beyond.

Building a business is simply mastering this process to a good enough level where you end up with enough clients to pay the bills. You will get many more No’s than Yes’s, so if you’re unwilling to face rejection then you really shouldn’t bother trying to start your own business. You can’t avoid the No’s or the uncomfortable conversations.

But you don’t need many Yes’s!

A 1% “conversion rate” (percentage of people you contact who become clients) is usually enough to sustain a service business. If you’re ambitious enough, you can contact 100 people per day. That’s one new client per day on average (once you get used to the process)! If most of your clients will be paying for more than a single session (i.e. why we do programs), then you will accumulate more clients over time.

So every day, you want to practice this process.

Reach out to new leads and contact them as per the previous section. Do as many as you can with the hours you have available. Assume a low response rate, so get your numbers up.

For those who respond positively, present your offer. For those who respond but aren’t interested, thank them and ask for a referral (but don’t keep contacting someone who says No directly). For those who are lukewarm but might be more keen later, make a note to contact them once per month to give them helpful information, or add them to your mailing list.

Note: don’t take being ignored on your first attempt as a sign of anything. Follow up at least one more time – you’d be surprised at how many people respond in round two! A lot of the time the message was just forgotten or the email went to the spam folder.

For those who are interested in your offer, get them to answer some questions about who they are, what they want to achieve, and what challenges they currently face (relating to what your program will deliver), or even better get them on a quick phone or video call to ask these questions in real time. The quicker you respond, the more likely you’ll get a Yes.

For those who answer the questions to your satisfaction – i.e. they are the people you can help – then explain to them what the program is about and what they’ll be doing, and book them in to start the program asap. This is the point you’d usually ask for the payment, but for now you’ll just ask for a commitment that at the end they’ll give you feedback and testimonial.

Book in their first session, and then follow through and deliver what you’ve promised.

This is all you need to know for now! Get out there and take action on this until you’ve found your 6-10 test rat clients!

Add $1

Once you’ve successfully run a test program and gotten your feedback and testimonials, adjust the program based on their feedback and experiences (i.e. make it better).

Then do the exact same process again, only this time instead of asking for reviews and feedback, you’ll be asking for money!

The amount does not matter at this stage, because you first just need to get over the fear and insecurities that come up for most people when asking to be paid for their personal services for the first time. Even $1 is enough – any symbolic transfer of money. From there on, you can just increase the number and keep everything else the same (e.g. I recommend you increase the fee by 10% each time you sign up a new client, until you get to a rate you believe is reasonable for an income).

You’ll change your initial messaging as well. Obviously, these are no longer test rats and this isn’t your first time. So just explain that you’ve already run a test, and now you want to offer them the newly improved paid version at a limited-time low investment.

What about content?

For those of you hoping to avoid rejection and discomfort by just posting content or offers online and hoping clients will come to you, I have bad news… it’s not going to work. It’s just not.

Posting content only serves one purpose at this early stage – help you identify warm leads. So if you do post content, it’s only so you can personally message the people who like and comment on those posts. Do not bother posting anything directly asking people to sign up etc., i.e. don’t post your offer to a broad audience.

You can post asking for people to make themselves known if they’re keen to hear more about something you’re working on, but that will not do the work for you, and reaching out personally 1:1 is more effective anyway.

However, if you plan to create content in the long term, I’d suggest you do that as a side-project, making warm outreach the priority. E.g. you can make posts and videos after you’ve done your 100 reach outs for the day.

Yes, I do content. But it was 5 years before the content started bringing in leads passively (without me needing to do anything but add a call to action in each post). You can’t wait 5 years.

Instead of posting offers, create helpful free content to build a library that will serve your current clients. Answer their questions, give them tips based on what you’ve seen running your program, share their success stories. This is the best kind of content to create leads anyway.

Cold leads

OK, so if you’ve really reached out to every possible warm contact you have (you probably haven’t), it’s time to create “cold leads” – to connect with people who don’t know you yet, and build a relationship with them.

Think of this as just a couple of extra steps to create a warm lead, and then you’d follow the normal process for a warm lead conversation.

First you need to connect with people.

Online this is very simple: add people as friends on social media, send them connection requests etc. Look for people that match your ideal client as closely as possible. The best place to find them is in special interest groups, or look to connect with friends of your current friends.

In person, this means introducing yourself to strangers. While that can mean striking up a conversation with someone at the bus stop, a more convenient and reasonable way is to meet people at shared social settings. Your work, book clubs, dance classes, meetup groups, hiking. Instead of ignoring people you don’t already know, go introduce yourself to them. The best place again is special interest groups packed with your ideal client type, e.g. I found lots of self-development enthusiasts in my salsa dance classes.

Once a connection is created, either online or in person, get to know them a bit in a normal genuine way. Explore what they’re up to and share your own life.

Once you’ve gotten to know each other a bit, they are now a “warm” connection, and you can treat them that way.

At some point, either during your first interaction or later down the line, a natural segue will be to talk about what you do, in which case you can naturally bring up your new business idea. From here, you’d transition to inviting them to be your test subject.

The Obvious Secret to Running a Successful Consulting Business

I’ve been coaching full time since 2013, and usually make about $100K US in annual revenue. This places me in the top 10% or so of coaches in terms of earnings and survival rate. 

The coaching industry has an extremely high failure rate. Estimates suggest that over 80% of new coaches quit within the first two years due to lack of clients, ineffective marketing, or financial struggles. Only a small percentage (~10-20%) ever make a full-time living from coaching.

Yet my vanity metrics are unimpressive. Even after more than a decade posting over 1,000 videos on YouTube, my subscriber count is only about 6,000, and my average views per video is something like 200. Keep in mind that more than half of viewers drop out within 30 seconds, that leaves only a small handful of people watching my main content source.

My social media following is equally unremarkable. I have 1,000 or so email subscribers, and a few hundred followers on each of the main social media platforms. Again, most of these are unengaged people, so the real number of actual loyal and enthusiastic followers is probably less than 200.

And yet, this small handful of die-hard supporters keep my business going. Because of them, I am able to support my wife (who doesn’t work) and child, paying for all our needs plus some luxuries and travel and hobbies.

There are coaches I know personally who’s vanity metrics are far superior to mine, and yet they struggle to break $10K per month. So what’s going on here?

What I’ve realised is that far too many solopreneurs – people who run their own business without employees – seem to overlook the most important element to any business: the PEOPLE.

Your supporters, customers and clients ARE the business. There is nothing more important. Nothing comes close to needing your attention and effort more than the individuals who are enthusiastic about what you do.

I see other coaches focusing on their revenue, their marketing, their content, their websites, their program design, and even ridiculous “side hustles”… on and on, and yet none of these things are directly focused on the people who will make or break your business.

Running a successful coaching business is really rather simple: serve people so powerfully that they want to pay you for it. Enhance their lives and charge them a fee they consider to be worth paying for the value they received.

Those few people who follow me have had their lives changed drastically with my support. They’ve gone from zero to hero because of my services. Some of them came to my wedding. I’m sure many will attend my funeral. I matter to them because I made a difference in their lives that surpassed anyone else who’s ever tried to help them, period.

When I first started my business, I got some wisdom that basically said: you only need 1,000 “True Fans”. That is, if you have 1,000 followers who think you are the best in your niche and you feature as one of their favourite people, you will make enough money to provide for your family.

Not 1 million, not even 10,000. Just 1,000.

For me, it turned out to be even less. I make $100K+ per year with roughly 200 True Fans. I can only imagine how overwhelmed I’d be with 1,000!

Unfortunately, vanity metrics can trick us. We can think that lots of email subscribers or YouTube views or Instagram fans is the equivalent to a profitable business. But you can have millions of followers and still not have enough True Fans to support your business.

So running a coaching or consulting business successfully only requires that you answer three questions:

1. What does a True Fan for me look like?
2. How do I find and connect with them?
3. How do I serve them enough that they wish to pay for my services?

There is literally nothing else you NEED to do. You can answer these questions without building a big following, or creating a fancy website, or trying to get on all the best podcasts. In fact, at the beginning, I highly recommend you hunt these people down one at a time.

Identify who you are best able to help, find someone like that, surprise them with free valuable support that enhances their lives, then invite them to discuss the paid version of your service. That’s it.

This book is going to help you master a number of practices and issues to run your business, but never lose sight of creating true fans.

10 Mistakes New Coaches and Entrepreneurs Make When Starting Their Business

My first couple of years as a coach were pretty tough. I only made it through because I’m a natural action-taker and pretty much fearless around rejection. I had no business background, a tiny network, and zero understanding of what the hell I was doing. But somehow I’ve lasted over 10 years in this game.

Even so, most of my time was wasted in the first few years. I see that now, and I want to help you avoid the same mistakes I made.

I’ve since worked with a lot of new entrepreneurs, and I see them all making the same critical errors at the start that frustrate them, slow their growth, and often prevent the business from succeeding.

Here are the top mistakes to avoid (and what to do instead).

Failing to validate the business idea

This is probably the main reason that a large percentage of new coaching businesses fail (the other is poor cashflow management). Just because YOU think it’s a good idea doesn’t mean it’s viable as a business.

You must test and validate your business idea. If you can’t get your idea into action, then there’s a good chance your idea kinda sucks. I know it’s hard to take, but becoming an entrepreneur means accepting that 80-90% of your ideas are nonsense.

Make sure you pass the test before you commit to registering a business, quitting your day job, building a website, coming up with a business name etc. – all the stuff that’s hard to reverse if you get it wrong.

The test is simple: you should be able to run a free version of your program and fill it with people in such a way as to prove that there is demand, that you have a unique selling point, and that you can be reasonably sure you will be able to create paying clients consistently.

“Build it and they will come” mentality

I have bad news for you: clients are not going to magically come to you simply because you exist. You will have to go and find them yourself.

With the rare exceptions of certain business types that supply necessary survival services (e.g. plumbers), most new businesses will have to build an audience of prospective clients, one person at a time, to get off the ground.

That means hours of reaching out to people, building relationships with them, and making offers. In your early days, this is what you should spend 90% of your time doing. Forget websites, content creation, social media posting – none of that shit will build your business.

Envision yourself at the computer sending messages one at a time, or calling people over and over, or going to events and introducing yourself. That’s how it actually works. Building a business really means building relationships.

Avoiding rejection

You hope some paid ads or Facebook posts will bring in clients who are already a firm YES and will just sign up without you having to do some icky sales stuff. I hate to break it to you – not gonna happen!

You must get used to hearing the words “No thanks” and “Not interested” and even the occasional “I’m blocking you!” if you want to find and create clients.

In the early days, you cannot hire someone else to do your marketing and sales. This approach will only see you scammed out of your cash quickly! Many marketing companies prey on new entrepreneurs who are hoping to avoid rejection.

Put it this way: you can hire someone else once you’ve figured out how to do it yourself and it works to a level where you can teach it to another person.

Hoping content will attract clients

Content – such as articles, videos and podcasts – will play a helpful role, which we will unpack later, and is indeed one branch of the marketing tree (the others being outreach and ads). But in the early days, creating content and thinking that will be enough is similar to the “build it and they will come” problem.

In the early days content can be used to help build relationships. It’s helpful during a conversation with a potential client to be able to say, “Oh I’ve written a guide for that problem, I’ll send it through”. But content alone is not going to passively grow your business.

To give you a benchmark, it wasn’t until about my 5th year as a coach before people started regularly coming to me from my YouTube videos and blog posts. I published 4 full length books that took a combined 7 years to write and only had one client directly come from them!

Think: focus on relying on content once you’re already sold out!

Being too open about your client type (niche)

A classic entrepreneurial mistake is thinking that anyone could be your client. You’re at the wrong end of the spectrum. A much more productive way to think about it is that less than 1% of people are your ideal client.

For you to figure out who that 1% is, you need to get super specific and boldly committed to a niche service or product.

You must solve a very specific problem for a very specific group of people.

“Life coach” attracts no one, while “Nice Guy Recovery Specialist for Fathers” attracts a core group of highly likely prospects. Calling yourself a “Personal Trainer” puts you in competition with literally millions of others, while calling yourself a “Mobility Coach for Zouk Dancers” eliminates all competition.

Solve one problem for one person at a time, then grow from there.

Making adjustments on low numbers

I’ve seen so many coaches constantly adjust their reaching out process based on tiny amounts of feedback. So someone will message five people and one of them gets upset about being messaged, so the coach changes their whole approach. Or a masseuse runs an ad for a week and spends $50 on it, gets no leads, and then decides to give up on advertising.

There’s a good chance that you’re having emotional reactions to numbers that are WAY too low!

You need HUNDREDS of attempts to get a decent sample size worth measuring. You need dozens of paid clients before you’ll be able to accurately measure the best activities for finding new clients. And you need these numbers spread over time and situations to get a range of different contexts.

Choose a method, then run a test that gives you at least 100 results. Then you can make some small adjustments. And I do mean small.

So if you’re running a marketing funnel of some kind, after each batch of 100 attempts you’d only make a small adjustment to a single step in the process (whichever step performs the worst), keeping everything else the same for the next round of testing.

Poor cashflow management

Cashflow describes the difference between revenue (income) vs. expenses on any given month. Get it into your head: positive cashflow is the most important financial goal. It doesn’t matter how much money comes in just so long as it never exceeds what’s going out.

Even a 7-figure coach can go bankrupt with bad cashflow. Seriously: I’ve seen it happen. On the other hand, I’ve been able to keep my business afloat even during months where I made less than minimum wage.

The biggest financial mistake I made early on was due to a naive reaction to an unusually good month. I’d scored myself a 5-figure month within a few months of going full time as a coach, and so I decided I had it all figured out. I spent money according to how much I made on that good month, as if I was still an employee on a steady paycheck.

Fast-forward 6 months’ later: I haven’t had a new client in months and I now owe money to my parents! I had to get a part time job just to make rent (which isn’t necessarily a bad idea for new coaches).

Entrepreneurship income is a roller coaster at first. There’s more luck than design at the start, so you need to spend as if times are tough, even when you get a good run.

I recommend the book Profit First by Mike Michalowitz – his system guarantees you won’t ever overspend and give yourself the cancer that kills most businesses: bad cashflow.

Ignoring the warmest leads

Nearly every service entrepreneur I’ve ever worked with – and myself included – has felt averse to contacting people close to them as potential clients. Some coaches are so averse to it that they begin with trying to find “cold leads” (people they’ve never met), and won’t even go near someone they have already had any form of contact with.

This is more of a confidence problem than anything else. You’re afraid you’ll be judged, embarrassed, or rejected by people who know you… who will then go on to tell everyone etc.

But look at it this way: until recently in human history, nearly every business owner lived in a small town or close-knit community. This means they personally knew most of their clients. There would have been blurry lines between customers and friends. And businesses have functioned just fine in this situation for thousands of years.

There’s no rational reason why you can’t approach those known to you first. If you have a good product that will enhance their lives, something they’d probably end up purchasing from someone at some point, then why shouldn’t it be from you? They get what they need to improve their life and they get to support someone they know. Win/win.

Get over yourself. Contact your old workmates, and Facebook friends, and connections from high school… first.

To give you a sense of this: in the first 4 years of being a coach, nearly half of my income came from people in my salsa dance class, and another quarter from former work colleagues.

Spreading yourself thin (Shiny Object Syndrome)

When you don’t know what you’re doing and you have a touch or more of ADHD (common in entrepreneurs), you’re likely to try any and every new idea that pops into your head. You’ll be easily distracted, easily scammed, and struggle to stick to something unless it shows immediate results.

Almost any classic approach to building a business will work if you can just stick with it long enough to get good at it. Sticking with something for a long period of time is so much more important than trying to find a one-hit-wonder approach.

Instead of trying to be a viral hit, just put out one video per day and try to make it better than the last video. Instead of changing your niche every time you think of a new problem to solve, let go of those enticing ideas and get back to repeating what you’ve already done before.

Dedicate yourself to making something work, rather than trying to find something that works well straight away.

Sure, you also want to avoid sticking with something that clearly doesn’t work, so this is a balancing act. One way to balance the need for innovation against the need for discipline is to schedule long term tests.

Give the current approach at least 30 days of repetition before you decide if it’s worth continuing with. Don’t change anything before the 30 days is up. And if after 30 days the numbers are looking promising, do it for another 30 days. If the numbers are terrible, try something else.

Being desperate for money

It took me years to finally see a pattern in my business that I’d already noticed in my dating life: the more desperate I was to get something, the less likely I was to get it.

The bane of any new service entrepreneur’s existence is their neediness for money. It’s rarely greed; it’s more of a desperation to make this work and have the dream of doing what you love for a living come true. The problem is this neediness is nearly impossible to avoid (especially when you have kids and responsibilities), and yet it will be felt by your prospects and put them off from buying.

One of the biggest problems I’ve ever had to solve for myself and my business clients is how to maintain non-neediness in the face of tough times. When you most need a client, how can you authentically not care about whether this prospect signs up?

There’s no quick fix for this, but there are some practical solutions.

In the early days, consider maintaining a part time job that covers your basic living expenses (i.e. the least amount of work needed to survive). That way you can go onto sales calls without literally needing the sale. Reduce your spending to the bare minimum so that you don’t need to make much money. Spending is the element you can most control in your finances, and focusing on it will give you a sense of power.

If you measure your numbers, eventually you’ll discover the number that matters most: your conversion rate. How many people do you need to reach out to before you get a new client? For most newbies, it’s somewhere in the 1% area, i.e. on average you need to reach out to 100 people to get one new client. Knowing this number can give you something better to focus on than trying to sign up this prospect. So when you’re on a sales call, you can tell yourself “I don’t need this guy to sign up, I just need to keep creating calls”.

I use a free session as a sales process, meaning I don’t actually “sell” my coaching, I give it to people as a free sample and it sells itself. This approach can create a great escape from neediness. When you make it clear that you won’t be selling on this call, both you and your prospect can relax. Tell them, “If we both want to work together after this, we’ll book in another call to figure out the details”.

The Coaching Ponzi Scheme

As a coach, I have participated in many training programs and hired a number of different coaches for myself over the years.

While I don’t regret most of these purchases, there are a few that left me feeling, well… off.

Most of my early coaches had “other” clients, meaning they had coaching clients who weren’t themselves coaches or trying to become coaches. A majority of their clientele worked in different professions and were getting coaching for everyday personal issues like confidence building, entrepreneurship (but not coaching), social skills, and career development.

However, occasionally I’ve ended up working with someone – usually in a group-type program – who exclusively works with coaches or wannabe coaches. Sometimes it would even seem that they’d only ever worked with coaches, and never had “normal” clients.

To make matters more suspicious, a vast majority of the other participants on these programs were also coaches who wanted to exclusively coach other coaches. And the coach leading the program would simply teach them how he managed to recruit them onto his program, so that they could duplicate his or her exact method to do the same to other wannabe coaches.

This is a pyramid scheme at the least, and a Ponzi scheme at the worst:

Coaches paying coaches to get coached on how to coach other coaches into paying to learn how to coach coaches.

Insanity.

I would always be so frustrated with these programs. 

The first major frustration is seeing someone who had never figured out how to build a real coaching business leaping straight into coaching other coaches on how to build theirs.

The second frustration was the constant emphasis on money. It’s like these people gave lip-service to the idea of helping others, but their true focus was greed for wealth. Which, if nothing else, is just stupid. If you want to get rich quickly, become a banker. Coaching rarely ends in riches. Less than 3% of coaches make more than $250K per year. Don’t believe the hype.

And the third major frustration is the growing realisation that the world is becoming flooded with inexperienced, untrained, and simply unwise people calling themselves “coaches” when all they really know how to do is market a coach-training program that someone else designed to other desperate wannabes.

They’re giving people like us a bad name.

I have a degree in psychology. I spent 7 years rehabilitating criminal offenders (i.e. coaching the most uncoachable people on Planet Earth), managing a high performing team, and being an expert practice consultant to thousands of Probation Officers. I’ve received god only knows how many hours of formal training at the feet of forensic psychologists, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, executive leaders and expert specialists.

And I’ve done the work on myself. I’ve faced hundreds of fears. I’ve completely rewritten my belief system. I’ve done thousands of social actions that most people consider impossibly humiliating. I’ve transformed from a completely fake and manipulative Nice Guy who couldn’t get a girlfriend let alone achieve a real connection with others into a man of integrity who’s married his dream partner and fathered a child.

I’ve coached hundreds of “normal” clients and helped them achieve measurably astonishing improvements in their self-confidence, integrity, and relationships.

I’ve earned the title “coach”. As have a number of other coaches out there. And I hope you will too.

But there are now hundreds of thousands of “coaches”, and I suspect a great majority of them are basically crap. They did a 12 week course, got a bullshit qualification, and learned how to use pain/pressure marketing to coerce other wannabe coaches into joining a program that they basically cut and pasted from their own coach.

If you want to become a coach, great! Do me a favour: before you sign up to any form of coach-training, verify that the trainer has coached many hundreds of “normal” clients before deciding to mentor other coaches. Make sure their business is based on being a great coach rather than just a clever marketer.

Even better, don’t just do “coach” training. Do valid training and courses led by recognized experts in topics like motivational interviewing techniques; Socratic Inquiry; critical thinking skills; Acceptance and Commitment Therapy; CBT; Stoicism, and so on.

And become a specialist. Don’t just be a “life coach” – what the hell does that even mean? Look at your life experience and talents and knowledge, and choose your specialty. I chose Nice Guy Syndrome. Maybe yours is executive leadership; or dating skills; or mindfulness; or physical toughness.

Please, let’s end the madness.

Struggling to Grow Your Coaching Business? Let Me Diagnose It for You!

You’ve made the leap into coaching. You’re passionate. You want to help people.

But let’s be real—passion doesn’t always pay the bills.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re working hard but not seeing the results you want. Maybe…

❌ You’re attracting low-quality clients who drain your energy.
❌ You’re stuck at an income level that doesn’t reflect your value.
❌ You feel like you’re doing everything right, but something isn’t clicking.
❌ You’re not sure how to scale your business without burning out.

Here’s the good news: You don’t need another generic strategy. You need a diagnosis.

Get a Personalized Business Diagnosis for Just $500

I’ve been coaching since 2013, and I’ve helped many coaches go from struggling to thriving. In this private business diagnosis, I’ll:

✔ Analyze your current business model, pricing, and offer positioning
✔ Identify blind spots that are costing you money and time
✔ Give you a clear roadmap to attract high-paying, committed clients
✔ Pinpoint your biggest revenue opportunities so you can earn more while working less

How It Works

1️⃣ Fill Out a Detailed Business Assessment Form – This helps me understand exactly where you are and where you’re stuck.
2️⃣ I Analyze Your Answers – I’ll dig deep into your business and spot the key areas holding you back.
3️⃣ We Jump on a 1-Hour Private Call – I’ll walk you through your personalized diagnosis, give you clear action steps, and answer any questions.

This is NOT a cookie-cutter strategy session. It’s a deep dive into your coaching business with real solutions tailored to you.

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Stop guessing. Start growing. Let’s make your coaching business as successful as it deserves to be.

How to grow your coaching business without dirty marketing tricks

If you’re looking to build a coaching (or any service) business, but don’t want to use dishonest marketing, cheap tricks, and gimmicks, then thankfully there is a way that works without all that nonsense.

I’m going to break it down into steps for you — think of it as a blueprint that you can adapt and change to suit your own personal preferences. But before you skip ahead to the list, there are a couple of important things you need to keep in mind.

Firstly, a complete stranger or someone unfamiliar with your work isn’t going to feel comfortable jumping straight into a session with you unless they’re a big risk-taker or they’re crazy. So it’s not a “marketing trick” to ease them into it with smaller steps first. You need to slow down and accept that people build up to coaching, they don’t just dive straight in.

Secondly, every step along the way should improve their lives. In fact, until they’re actually getting coaching with you, don’t even think of them as “a potential client” or a “lead” or a “prospect”. Instead, just view them as a person you can serve, with no expectations (as much as possible).

Thirdly, if you see this process as a “marketing funnel”, and view it as just a strategy to “get” clients, then it won’t work because that neediness and greed will be felt by people along the way. It’s off putting.

And lastly, think of quality over quantity. Rather than trying to do this with as many people as possible, aim instead to do it to a high degree of excellence with a few people whom you’d love to work with. You’ll engage with less people per day with this approach, but the responsivity will be much higher and better for your business overall, not to mention much more fulfilling and enjoyable.

OK, let’s do the steps now. Keep in mind that you can change or skip some of these sometimes, but they will serve as a basic blueprint that you can rely on for success.

Step one — connect

Focus on people you already know first. Don’t get into the classic new-coach trap of thinking you must find strangers for some reason. You have diamonds in your backyard. Anyone whose life you can improve is worth contacting.

Do your research. Before making contact with someone — be they friend, associate or stranger — find out as much important information as you can about them first, especially relating to your area of expertise. This will give you ideas on how to serve them powerfully.

Your first contact, while short and concise, should still be highly valuable. Recognise their strengths, compliment their successes, and encourage their efforts. Show that you noticed them positively and want them to succeed. Don’t ask for anything in return, just validate them and leave it with them to see if they want to respond.

Step two — invitation to a group

This may take different forms, it depends on your preferences. Maybe this is a Facebook group. I like to use a Skool community. Maybe it’s a live Meetup weekly get-together. Maybe it’s a monthly online webinar. Maybe it’s just an email list.

I have a Brojo group that is both online and in-person, depending where I am in the world!

The point is that if they respond positively to your original contact, you then invite them to join the community you’ve created, mentioning that you’ve invited them because you believe them to be a valuable addition to the group (this must be genuine — so make sure you select people you admire and respect from the beginning of this process).

This is the value holding-pen. Some people may join the group but never become clients. Some might be part of it for years and then become interested in coaching. Some might want coaching within a week.

The point is that this is an easy place for you to provide bulk service — to give value to lots of people with minimal effort, and to become the coach in their lives over time whether they are clients or just followers.

This group or list or meetup should be packed with value. Posts, videos, articles, discussions, shared experiences and so on. Make sure that anyone arriving says “Holy shit this place is awesome!”

Tip: the members themselves are half the value. Encourage sharing and discussion!

Step three — get to know them individually

Once someone joins the group, contact them personally and ask if they’d be OK with sharing something about themselves with you. The purpose here is to a) get to know your audience/niche better, b) learn how to make the group more valuable, and c) find specific ways to serve each person.

You might invite them to a short interview, or send them some questions via messenger, or invite them to post in the group. Whatever it is that gets them to share more about themselves, their struggles and their dreams.

This is all information you will use to create valuable content and increase your wisdom about your people.

Step four — personalised content

If someone gives you meaningful answers to your questions in the previous step, ask their permission to give them feedback and guidance on what they’ve shared with you. If they say Yes, then — using whichever format you prefer — make a specific piece of content just for them that attempts to improve their lives based on their answers.

I prefer making short videos. A good trick I’ve found is to create long form videos, and then use an app like Opus to easily create tonnes of short videos automatically for daily posting to a wider audience.

You could record your voice, write an article, or even share some book recommendations. The point is to hit the bullseye with what they need right now to help them get past whatever wall they’re currently stuck behind.

Tip: make the content available to the wider audience (i.e. keep the person anonymous). Many of my clients come from YouTube videos I made for someone else!

Step five — invite to trial session

If they respond appreciatively and enthusiastically to the content you created for them, then invite them to a call with you. This call is freely given with no sales pitch, manipulation, or obligations. It’s basically just an upgraded level of service from the previous piece of content.

Coach them like they’re your favourite and highest paying client. Hold nothing back. Let your service do the selling for you.

If it goes well by both your standards, then you book in another call to discuss paid coaching.

That’s the whole process!

Rinse and repeat, and only move onto contacting strangers when there’s literally no one left in your social circle and network that you want any connection with. With strangers the process is the same, only you might need to explain who you are and why you’re contacting them.

The 20 Mindset Principles of Powerful Coaching

In my coach-training program, I break the education into two streams: coaching and business.

While both of these overlap considerably, each has different focuses and principles to keep in mind. So I’ve written this chapter by splitting the top 10 mindset principles for each category into two sections.

Let’s start with Coaching.

Coaching Mindset Principles

#1 Treat every session like it’s with your favourite client who pays you a million dollars per year

The key to coaching successfully is to focus on powerful service. For many coaches, this simply means not allowing yourself to be distracted by other urges, needs, and goals.

No matter who’s in front of you, give them everything you’ve got. Even if you think you’ll never see them again, give them the same level of service your favourite client receives.

#2 Your job isn’t to make them happy, it’s to help them find the truth, no matter how much it hurts

Some coaches struggle because they want their clients to like them, or to enjoy the sessions. But happiness is not a motivating emotion.

People are moved much more powerfully by frustration, guilt and fear. Your job is to use the truth to elicit these motivational forces.

It’s in achieving the necessary changes that they’ll find happiness. This doesn’t happen during the sessions, because they have to earn it with real-life action.

If they’re feeling happy a lot during your sessions, you’re probably not doing it right.

#3 The first answer is always a lie

A big mistake I often used to make was believing my client’s first answer to a question. This led me to do completely pointless sessions, because I rushed into their first answer to “What should we talk about today?” without challenging it for something deeper.

Assume they are unconsciously lying to you. Assume that the first answer is just a draft and it will take much more investigation to find the real answer.

#4 Slow down to speed up — rather than rush to a solution, allow a solution to present itself

Rushing during a session stems from a desire to fix their problems. But that’s not your job; it’s theirs! So why are you rushing?

Try using restraint. Rather than pointing to the “obvious” solution, keep using naive questions and reflections to elicit the answers from them.

#5 You can’t do the work for them — once the player is on the field, it’s on them

Some coaches try to manage the actions a client will take after the session. This shows a lack of trust — you’re assuming the person needs you there in real-time.

It’s more in their best interest that you leave it with them. Let them decide their actions. Let them hold themselves accountable.

If a client asks you to hold them to account, say “No, that’s your job, I’m not your babysitter”.

They know what’s best for themselves.

#6 Trust your instincts — risk making incorrect assumptions

One of the most powerful yet rarely recommended techniques in coaching is making judgmental assumptions!

The thing is, if you’re a coach, there’s a good chance you have a natural empathy and talent for reading people. With practice, this can become a super-power.

The way to become nearly psychic in your ability to correctly guess what people are thinking and feeling and what they’ve experienced in life is to risk making educated guesses.

Tell them about the assumptions, guesses and judgments that came to your mind while they were talking. Risk being wrong, or offending them. Allow them to correct you.

Over time, if you listen and adjust to their feedback, you’ll notice yourself getting it right more often. Nothing sells coaching like a client being blown away at how well you know them despite having almost no information to go on!

#7 If you buy their excuses and stories, you both lose

If their reasons for struggling are believed by you, then they have no chance of changing the narratives that hold them back.

No matter how legitimate their excuses and barriers seem to be, you must disagree and be skeptical.

I don’t care if my client is physically disabled, or up to their neck in debt, or taking care of a dying parent, or crippled by anxiety. None of these things are legitimate excuses for poor behaviour, harmful decisions, and absences of integrity… even if I use those same excuses myself!

So when someone says, “I couldn’t do [important integrity action] because [extremely believable excuse]”, your response must always be, “Why is that a good reason not to live with integrity?” as if you just heard the biggest line of bullshit ever expressed.

#8 Your coaching quality is welded to your health and wellbeing

New coaches are especially prone to self-neglect when getting their businesses off the ground. They kiss goodbye to their fitness regime, social life, and hobbies, and give it all to their business.

Isn’t that a tad hypocritical for someone who’s supposed to be helping their clients create a wonderful life for themselves?

You must live what you preach. If nothing else, the more tired, stressed, distracted and unhealthy you are, the worse your coaching is, and therefore your business suffers.

If you can’t find one hour per day to take care of your basic needs, you’re lying to yourself.

#9 It’s not You vs Client — it’s both of you together vs their resistance

Sometimes you’ll get frustrated with your clients because they seem to be fighting against your noble and wise attempts to help them.

But it’s not them you’re fighting against, it’s their resistance to change. They are suffering from this even more than you are. They are victims too.

Don’t be mad at them, be mad for them.

Put it this way: if they didn’t struggle with this resistance, they wouldn’t have gotten coaching in the first place. This resistance is why you’ve been hired! This is the reason they’re here!

If you can’t handle a resistant client, you’re in the wrong business.

#10 You must go where you’re both afraid to go — coaching is leading

The most powerful coaching happens when you get out of your comfort zone, not just them.

There are truths you want to say and areas you know you need to explore, but you’re scared. You’re scared of hurting them, or losing them, or being wrong and making them think you’re not a good coach.

Go there anyway.

Offend them by denying the accuracy of their beliefs. Challenge them by forcing them to see they are responsible for their entire lives. Shock them by pointing out that their favourite strategy keeps backfiring. Accuse them of lying to themselves.

You’ll either lose them forever (rare) or completely transform their life. It’s worth the risk if you really care about people.

Business mindset principles

#1 It’s all built on powerful service — nothing else matters

The odd irony of this chapter is that the business and the coaching are one and the same: all you’re doing is adding value to people’s lives.

If there’s anything you’re doing that does not have the intention of improving someone’s life, then it’s not worth doing. Whether you call it “marketing” or “coaching”, it should still always provide value to people.

Most unsuccessful (or fraudulent) coaches focus on things other than serving others; things like making more money, becoming an influencer, or impressing people with their knowledge.

Before you do anything in this business, look at the task in front of you and ask yourself, “Who does this serve directly, and how?”* If you don’t have a clear answer, then do something else.

*(The exception is the obvious legal admin stuff like taxes).

#2 You’re playing a long game — 1% increments of improvement

Forget overnight success, and think more about building a house one small brick at a time.

Each day, think about a small but significant thing you could do to add even more value to your audience and the people you wish to serve.

Maybe it’s a better microphone for your videos. Maybe it’s a new coaching technique. Maybe it’s a book recommendation. Maybe it’s adding another platform to share your ideas. Maybe it’s posting a vulnerable story that role-models shamelessness.

One new thing each day leads to massive improvements in 1 year, 5 years, and beyond. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Avoid quick-fix tactics and desperate spending on snake-oil coach training companies.

Give yourself 10 years to make this work, not 10 weeks.

#3 Your business is nothing more than a collection of valuable relationships

A simple formula for creating a long-standing, highly reputable and financially successful coaching business is to build deep and powerful relationships with people one at a time.

Every day, you should be engaged in two activities more than anything else: strengthening current relationships, and creating new relationships (in that order).

A successful coaching business is essentially nothing more than a database of meaningful connections; people who always think of your name whenever they want support and guidance and mentorship.

Be so valuable that you’re the only person people in your audience think of when they eventually realise, “I need some coaching”.

#4 Regarding new prospects: they could be anything or anyone

Let go of hopes and expectations when you eagerly interact with a new “prospect”. Even labelling them in this way creates neediness and pressure, which will undermine your coaching.

Treat each new person as limitless potential. Sure, it’d be nice if they become an ideal client, but maybe they’ll be a friend, or a confidant, or even an enemy!

You don’t know what they’ll end up being, so let go of any preconceived ideas and just let them become whatever they’re supposed to be.

And don’t limit who they are. You might think they don’t look like ideal coaching material, but at least have an exploratory session with them before you make a final call. You’d be amazed at how many people surprise you.

#5 Financial security is more about management of money than creating high income

Financial anxiety is the leading cause of coaches tanking their businesses. It creates neediness, instant-gratification seeking, and disastrous short-term thinking and business decisions.

The best way to manage this anxiety is to control your spending. Cut back on anything that isn’t necessary for survival. Move to a cheaper apartment. Stop drinking alcohol.

I recommend the book “Profit First” by Mike Michalowitz. Use a system that ensures you never go broke, no matter how much you earn.

In simple terms, never pay yourself more than 50% of your gross revenue, and always put aside at least 20% for taxes — consider that money as already gone.

Reduce both your personal and business spending until you feel safe about not signing up any new clients this month. Don’t go full time in coaching until you have at least 3 months’ worth of survival expenses saved away.

#6 Assume the whole world is watching you at all times: BE your business and brand

Hypocrisy is a death-sentence for coaches. If you’re seen to preach it without living it, you become instantly unbelievable.

The best content you can create is real-life coverage of how you actually live what you teach, with all the imperfections, relapses, failures and struggles of a normal human being.

Being a coach isn’t about being perfect. It’s about showing that you understand WHY people struggle, and can therefore help them with their efforts.

#7 Your best ‘leads’ are current and former clients

As the old saying goes, “There are diamonds in your backyard”.

Coaching is a unique business in that you only need a few great clients to be financially successful. This isn’t Walmart, where a huge quantity of people spend a small amount of money and the customer turnover is high.

In the future, much of your business will be repeat business. Your best potential new clients are the people you’ve already coached!

Most of your service efforts should go to your current and former clients. New people should never be prioritised over those who already value you — that should be obvious (but for some reason it isn’t to most coaches).

When launching a new product or service, always prioritise going to the people who have bought from you before.

#8 The client decides how valuable the coaching is

Imposter Syndrome and the old “not good enough” story plagues coaches throughout their career. This is aggravated by a harsh truth in the coaching business: the client is the one who decides if you’re good enough.

You’ve either blown their mind and served them powerfully, or you haven’t. And strangely enough, they decide if this has happened, not you.

So relax about rejections. You don’t control them. If you showed up and did your best, it’s now out of your hands.

You can’t convince someone of your value if they don’t already see it in a coaching session. It just means you’re not a good fit for each other.

Think of it like dating: rather than trying to be more attractive, focus on finding people who are attracted to you as you are.

By the way, whenever someone says “I can’t afford you” they’re really saying “You’re not good enough at coaching me for me to want to spend this money”. Harsh but true. But this doesn’t mean you suck at coaching in general, you just aren’t for them.

#9 Start with who you know

You don’t have to only find strangers for clients. Your current social circle and connections are where most of the gold lies.

I’m not advocating the dreadful MLM approach of soliciting your old high school buddies to sign up to some scammy bullshit. But you should be focused on serving the people you know and love before looking for people you’ve never met.

Before you even think about things like cold-calling or advertising or “reaching out”, you should have made a list of everyone you know (really!) and have exhausted that list first.

Serve these people first and foremost.

#10 No dead ends

Most of the people you make contact with aren’t interested in coaching right now. But dismissing them is a mistake.

People should have the experience of indefinite contact with you. That means no matter how they have contact with you, there should always be a next step on offer.

If they watch one of your videos, it should end with an invitation for them to email you their thoughts about it.

If they have an initial coaching session, it should end with booking in a follow up session.

If they say no to coaching right now, you should respond with an invitation to join your online group.

Whenever you get their contact information, it should be added to your list and this list should regularly receive freely given valuable content (e.g. an email newsletter).

Until you get a restraining order or equally obvious “Leave me the fuck alone!” type message from them, treat them as if they will get coaching from you later providing you keep serving them until then.

Creating Online Clients: Coaching and Consulting Services

If you have a personal service business that can be delivered online, like consulting, coaching, training etc., and you’d like to open up your business to the world rather than be confined to local clients, this chapter will cover how I do it.

There are many ways to do it, this is just my preferred way, partly because it’s non-spammy, and partly because it suits my talents and the kinds of activities I enjoy.

Main elements

My primary system is based on creating free online content, driving enthusiastic audience members into an online community, and from there creating personal client relationships.

Nothing tricky or secret about this system. It’s an online version of what I used to do locally in person: I’d do free meetup groups where I’d help people out, then they’d join my Brojo community and do workshops etc., then I’d invite them to 1:1 coaching.

So the main elements are Content, Community, and Relationships.

Content

Give away all your best ideas for free!

Understand that your main product is the direct communication with you, which no content will ever be able to substitute for. If your main product is content, this isn’t really a book for you. This is for people who do live coaching services 1:1 and/or to groups.

Choose your preferred method for creating the original content. I prefer videos. You might like the podcast or written methods. Do whatever you enjoy most and will stick with for a long period of time.

I post a combination of short and long content. But I actually only create long-form videos. A good trick I’ve found is to create long form videos, and then use an app like Opus to easily create tonnes of short videos automatically for daily posting.

I then convert all videos into audio and written content as well, using the transcribing app Otter (click the link and you get a month for free).

This way, a single long video gives birth to a podcast (both video and audio versions), 4 or 5 medium videos, and 12 short videos. All of these are transcribed and become corresponding written posts. The short videos become my daily newsletter.

Once I’ve created all this content, I then publish it EVERYWHERE.

I have a daily newsletter via Substack, which also gets copied onto all written forms of social media, such as Facebook, Reddit, and Medium. The short videos are posted on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Youtube.

I have two weekly medium videos on Youtube. I have one podcast length audio on Soundcloud, iTunes, Spotify etc (and video version on Youtube).

This looks like a lot – but it’s only a few hours’ work per month to generate all this content, especially when I work with apps, and later on you can bring on support people who will do the manual stuff that AI and apps can’t handle well. It takes a while to get familiar with all the platforms – each has different requirements and limits – but once you’re used to it you can adjust the posts as needed quickly.

Don’t be afraid of learning the platforms! Start with one at a time, then add more as you become familiar with them. Eventually, you can even hire someone to handle it for you (but do it yourself first to know what you’d be paying for).

My content directly addresses key specific issues my target audience has. I ask my clients and audience directly, I research popular search keyword terms, I look at what’s trending in my niche. I give them what they want!

All of this content serves two purposes: it helps people, and it promotes my community. Every single piece of content in some way tells people to go check out the Skool community, whether it’s directly in the content itself (longer form), or as a comment on the post (shorter form).

Rather than spamming people with direct messages like most nuisance wannabe coaches, I allow people to self-select and come to me as warm connections by gently yet clearly inviting them to the community.

Make sure there are no dead-ends. Any time someone reads/watches your content, they should be prompted on the next step. It should always lead somewhere better.

If you want to be more direct, I also sometimes have a call to action to contact me directly (by email), e.g. invite them to ask me a question or give me feedback. From there, I will develop a relationship with them.

In the podcasts, I will actually invite them to coaching, because longer form content guarantees a more engaged person, whereas in a 1 min video it’s asking too much too soon.

Community

I host the Brojo community on Skool. There are other platforms, such as Facebook groups, or private Reddit forums. It depends on your preferences, whether you’re willing to pay for the platform, and what kind of content you will be posting there.

This is the place where you post all your best stuff and become personally available to your audience. You will dedicate much of your available time to stoking up conversations, making sure people are included, inciting them with questions and so on. Make sure it’s ALIVE in there!

Again, make the group free to join, but more exclusive and private than just commenting on public content. When they join, make personal contact with them and surprise them with extra value – I usually give them a free course worth a few hundred dollars, or one of my books.

Think of the community as a way to serve the world more directly, while also developing client relationships through service.

Relationships

Once someone is in the community, the key is to keep serving them and escalating the level of service.

Remember, your paid product – e.g. coaching sessions – is just one type of service. It’s your content on steroids. So all you’re ever doing, whether it’s free or paid, is trying to improve their lives. It’s just that once they escalate to a certain level, they need to reciprocate by paying for the best stuff and for your time.

Generally people escalate either very quickly or very slowly. So they’ll either be on a trial coaching call within 3 days of first hearing your name, or they’ll become a client within the next few years.

You don’t need to rush or push. You’re not trying to manipulate them. Rather, you serve them until they’re ready for the good stuff.

Start with getting to know them. This can be done with messages, quick calls, questionnaires etc. Try to get a sense of who this person is, what they need, and what level of service they can currently handle.

Track all your relationships on a Client Relationship Management (CRM) tool of some kind, whether this is a software program (I use Pipedrive), or an excel spreadsheet, or even a notice board with sticky notes. You should be on top of where every individual is in the basic system of your client relationship, tracking every step from first contact through to paid client.

You should also have a sense of where you fit into the self-development journey with your service. Do you work with beginners or experts? Make sure you invite them to your services at the right level. It’s no good inviting a broke student to your wealth coaching, just as it’s no use inviting a champion body builder to your weight loss for new mums program.

Basically, treat every positive response as a sign to escalate. Commented on your post? Invite to the group. Joined the group? Give them a free course. Engaged in the course? Invite them to a discovery call. Booked the call and showed up enthusiastically? Offer them paid coaching.

And follow up every step of the way. Don’t take aclk of response as a sure sign they’re uninterested. Get a solid no or complete ghosting before giving up.

And if they’re slow to respond, hesitant, or directly say No (but they still seem to like you), you treat them as a longer term relationship. Think: “Not yet, they need more service first”. Slow it down, check in on them every month, make sure they’re subscribed to your newsletter, and keep making their lives better.

Make sure any time you contact someone, first ask yourself, “How do I improve their life today?”

Going online

Most of the above is a process that could be applied in any context, including in-person with local leads. Here are some extra online-specific things to consider:

Whatever else you do, have an email list! I prefer Substack because people on the app can find you from other writers, but there are also AWeber, Mailchimp and many others. Email addresses are the most solid contact information available.

Third world countries are broke. Sounds ruthless, but you have a business to run here. So while I will happily serve people from India, Nigeria, Pakistan etc as enthusiastically as anyone else, I don’t bother escalating to paid coaching. I give them big discounts on courses instead. My coaching costs thousands in USD – it’s simply out of reach for some countries.

Paid advertising helps indirectly. Let go of the idea that paid ads for your service are a great idea. It’s better off having at least a low level budget for paid ads on Meta or Google that promote your community. You might not see a direct correlation – e.g. ad leads becoming clients – but there’s something about running ads online that boosts your overall reach. Even better, run ads for your most popular content, e.g. advertise your most watched Youtube video and set the ads to focus on getting subscribers.

Prepare to work with different timezones. It’s no good being only rigidly available to people locally if you want international clients. You’d be amazed how much business you lose just from being hard to book in with. There are certain times that work well for almost everyone, such as evening European time (daytime America and Oceania). Or at least be available for your favourite region after work hours.

If you are multilingual, put it to good use. Non-English speaking countries are often starved for services that are abundant in English. If you speak more than one language, double everything up for both, e.g. have both an English and a Spanish Youtube channel.

Put all your fees in USD – it’s the currency most people are able to convert easily to their own in their heads. Try not to use a weirdly specific currency. Some people are distrustful of spending money online, and an unusual country will be off-putting for them (e.g. I’m in the Czech Republic but charge in USD). Use Stripe, Wise or Paypal to create invoices that can be paid in multiple ways online, or a similar trustworthy system. Make it very easy for them to pay – every barrier you put up loses clients.

Be prepared to have platforms rug-pull you. I get shadow-banned at random. Sometimes a platform will just stop showing my posts for a while. If you’re controversial, you might even get banned. So make sure you repost everything on as many platforms as possible, avoiding the risk of having it all taken away at once.

Different platforms attract different crowds. If you’re a business consultant, you’re better off focusing on LinkedIn than Facebook, but a beauty specialist should focus on Instagram. If your audience is young, go with TikTok. If they’re older and well-read, go with Medium and Substack. Etc.

Likes don’t mean shit. The number of followers is misleading. I have a 6 figure business from mostly Youtube leads, and I’ve never had a viral video. Most of my videos only get a couple hundred views. I have about 6,000 subscribers. Those numbers don’t matter. If you put out quality content, you find quality clients.

This approach overall takes time. It was 5 years before I had enough people coming to me passively to provide a full income on its own. You will have to squeeze the most out of every comment, every community member, until the momentum builds.

How to use video content to build your coaching business

After nearly 10 years of coaching, the numbers don’t lie: most of my clients either come directly from my YouTube audience, or are people who have binged on my video content before getting in touch.

While this won’t be the case for all coaches, I prefer creating video content as my primary way of producing value, so having my clients also come to me from videos is perfect for me. If you prefer writing or audio or some other form of content, you can still apply most of this chapter, just substitute “video” for your preferred medium.

If you also like creating videos — e.g. you’re extroverted, enjoy editing, and find public speaking relatively easy and fun — then let’s talk about how to use this talent to build your coaching business authentically.

It’s not about the numbers

I should point out, I’m NOT a professional YouTuber or video creator. This is not a chapter about how to go viral or create a large audience through videos. This is about how to create amazing coaching clients.

I only have a few thousand subscribers and most of my videos only get a few hundred views. And yet this relatively small audience brings in a six figure coaching revenue for me every year.

I don’t have ads on my videos either (which my audience really appreciates). The only call to action on my videos is usually inviting people to my community and asking people to contact me directly for more support.

I recommend you get clear on what you want. If coaching is your primary business, then don’t also try to make side-money through ads with your videos, or get lost focusing on how many subscribers, views and likes you get. Those numbers aren’t important.

In coaching, the only number that really matters is how many coaching sessions you’re having per week. Make sure to always remember this when you create your videos. If your videos fill your week with coaching sessions, then no other numbers matter.

Content topics

I never have writer’s block. I have a HUGE list of potential video topics waiting to be done. And this is for a simple reason:

All of my videos directly answer a question from a real person (or reflect questions that came up during coaching sessions).

I used to constantly make the mistake of trying to think of a good topic for a video that I believed my audience needed to hear. Then I switched over to just asking people what they wanted, and making videos specifically for them.

I’ve never looked back. This is all I do now.

Go to your people, no matter how few they might be at the start, and ask them what they want to know; what they’re struggling with; what would help them achieve their goals, and so on.

Also, share personal stories. Whether you won or lost, share the story about the time you learned something that you see applies to your audience as well.

How to make great quality videos

Firstly, don’t get too caught up in making a great video! The videos I’ve made that bring in the most clients are actually really low-budget with minimal editing.

The only production quality you really need to care about is basic lighting and sound. Get a decent microphone (I use a Blue Yeti Nano), and ensure you film yourself facing the light (a window is best — natural lighting beats lamps).

When it comes to editing, limit yourself to “jump cutting” (removing long pauses, mistakes, and unnecessary information) and removing background hiss noise. That’s it! A quick Google or ChatGPT search will teach you these simple editing techniques.

For editing video I use Power Director, and for sound I use Audacity.

I film myself in my office. I don’t do a fancy background or even wear extra nice clothes. The videos look like you’re on a casual video call with me. My audience tells me that this gives an impression of authenticity — a no-bullshit, all value and no filler approach that they appreciate. And it is authentic — this is how I look and talk in normal situations.

Quantity over quality? Yes!

An ironic rule for content creation is to focus more on quantity than quality.

What this means is making sure you pump out as many videos as you can. It doesn’t mean you fill those videos with bullshit, of course. You need to try your best to create specific, helpful content.

But rather than trying to be perfect, treat videos more like an ongoing conversation with your audience. Pick a question, make a few bullet points about what you’d like to say, film the whole thing in one take, quickly edit out the errors and nonsense, and then publish. And then repeat again and again and again!

Just getting started? Try one video per day.

Watch your videos after they’re published, note some lessons about what you liked and didn’t like, and then move on to the next video creation.

This is how you get better at it over time while still constantly creating value and building your audience and business.

My clients often joke that I’ve got “a video for everything” because after more than a decade of creating videos I can find one for almost any specific question they have.

Use video to communicate

Whenever you’re interacting with a client or prospect outside of a coaching session, try to use video messaging as much as possible.

Take the better messages, edit them, and then post them publicly as well (make sure you respect the privacy wishes of the person you were interacting with when you made the video).

If you have Zoom/Skype video sessions for coaching, steal clips where you gave great advice or made interesting insights, and publish those too.

Create a huge library of both short and long videos where you are helping real individuals in real time, and then publish them to a wider audience as well.

Most of my clients come from videos I made to help a specific individual. Ironically, it’s rarely the individual I’m helping who becomes a client, rather it’s someone else who is also interested in the same topic (but is more ready for coaching).

Promotion

I’ve done so much research and paid for courses and all that to learn about how to “beat” the YouTube algorithm and make the most of SEO. And I use Answer The Public and ChatGPT to create titles and descriptions that match key search terms. But…

You know what? It doesn’t really matter.

The videos that have had the most traction broke many of the supposed rules. And many of my videos that didn’t “do well” with organic traffic are also some of my most profitable for creating clients.

What I’ve discovered is that if you focus on answering very specific questions from real people, and use their words in the title and description etc., you have the best chance of the video becoming popular.

And even if it doesn’t, remember the main purpose: serving and creating clients. If a video has only 30 views but brings in 2 new clients, you’re already making more money than even some viral video that has millions of views but only makes revenue from Google ads.

Be shameless

Whatever network you’ve got, publish the video there.

Share it on social media. Send it out as a newsletter to your list. Send it via personal message to 10 contacts you think would appreciate it (and ask them to share it too). Make sure every video clearly invites the viewer to move forward with coaching. The best thing I’ve found is a small step that creates a personal connection, like “Email me your insights from this video”.

A little trick: find a question on Quora.com that matches your video, and then post your video as an answer. I’ve had a lot of traffic from Quora.

The big picture

Think of this as building a library of wisdom for your clients.

Aim to leave no stone unturned in your field of expertise. Make sure every specific question they have is solved with a video answer.

In the long term, people will discover you and be blown away by how much freely given insightful knowledge you offer. Then they’ll binge on your videos, ensuring they qualify themselves for coaching without any effort on your part.

In my experience, when someone emails me with, “I’ve been watching so many of your videos…” I know I’ve got a great new client.

My Must-Have Business Tools to Save Time and Make More Money

These are the apps and platforms I use. Some of these are “affiliate” links meaning I’ll get a commission if you sign up, however I just do that because I’m already recommending them anyway based on my satisfaction with using them (won’t say no to a couple of dollars for referrals!)

🚀 Pipedrive – The Ultimate CRM for Coaches & Entrepreneurs
Managing clients and tracking leads shouldn’t be a headache. Pipedrive makes it effortless to organize your pipeline, follow up with leads at the perfect time, and close more deals—all in one place. It’s hands-down my favorite tool for running a smooth, profitable marketing system.

🎥 Opus – AI-Powered Short-Form Video Creator
Stop spending hours editing videos! Opus automatically extracts engaging short clips from your long-form content, adds captions, and formats them perfectly for social media. Create viral short videos daily without lifting a finger—grow your audience the smart way.

💸 Wise – The Best Way to Get Paid Internationally
If you work with global clients, Wise is a game-changer. Say goodbye to ridiculous bank fees and slow transfers. Get paid quickly, securely, and at the lowest exchange rates—whether you’re invoicing or sending money abroad.

🏡 Skool – The Future of Online Communities & Course Hosting
Forget Facebook groups! Skool gives you a dedicated space to build an engaged community, host courses, schedule group calls, and even charge memberships (if you want). No algorithms to fight—just pure connection and value.

📂 Dropbox – Your Secure Hub for File Storage & Sharing
Need to store client call recordings, important documents, or large files? Dropbox keeps everything secure, accessible from any device, and easy to share with a click. No more lost files or messy email attachments.

📅 Timely – Hassle-Free Appointment Booking
Streamline your scheduling with Timely—the best appointment booking system for coaches, consultants, and service providers. It integrates seamlessly with your calendar, removes scheduling conflicts, and makes client bookings effortless. (Calendly is a solid alternative but doesn’t do recurring appointments easily like Timely does.)

📝 Otter – AI Transcription for Effortless Content Creation
Turn spoken words into written gold. Otter transcribes audio and video with high accuracy, making it perfect for repurposing client calls, creating blog posts, or capturing important notes. Say more, type less.

I’ve read dozens of business books, and these few stood out as actually helpful for beginners in a service-based business:

Alex Hormozi – 100M Leads and 100M Offers

Mike Michalowitz – The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur and The Pumpkin Plan

Rich Litvin – The Prosperous Coach

Michael Port – Book Yourself Solid

Perry Marshall – 80/20 Sales and Marketing

How to qualify coaching clients

Qualification is something I didn’t take seriously enough when I first got started. Now that I’ve been at this for a few years or so I’ve come to realize that making sure clients are a great fit for you, and ideal for coaching, is really important to do right from the beginning. Even if it means working with less people initially, you’ll free up space to work with great people who end up being more valuable for the time spent on them.

What I’ve managed to do is to figure out 3 qualifying spectrums that everybody sits on. What we’re looking for is finding a person who’s high in all of these three areas. Let’s look at how to assess where someone lies on those three spectrums. I’ll talk about what to do when somebody is low on one of them before you start working with them.

It’s really important someone is high on all three because somebody who’s high on two of them is what I call “Fool’s Gold” — they look like they’re gonna be a good client and they turn out not to be. At the very least they might work with you but they’re a drag and a hassle to work with.

Let’s get into it.

#1: Willingness to Change (as demonstrated by action)

The first spectrum is willingness to change. Somebody is uncoachable until they take responsibility for their life and are willing to change their beliefs and behaviour.

This can be very difficult to measure because a lot of people use words that sound like they’re responsible. They say “I need to do something about my life and these things that are really bothering me. I wish I could change” and so on. It’s easy to be persuaded by those words.

In order to measure where someone lies on the spectrum you need to be looking at what they’ve already done. A key question that you can ask to measure this is:

“What have you tried in the last three-six months?”

What you’re looking for here is evidence that they are willing to take action to change without you. Coaching is not for people new to self-development! It’s for people already on their way, looking for accelerated progress.

Someone who’s low on the spectrum — someone who’s like “I haven’t tried anything yet“ or “I’ve just been reading articles online” (very low action) — is not really doing anything in terms of change of behavior.

Someone who’s medium the spectrum and still a potential coaching candidate is someone who’s done some stuff but it’s just information-absorption: “ I’ve been to seminars / workshops / seeing a therapist / coach” or something like that. So they’ve tried to get involved with taking action but it’s been mostly around receiving help.

The high level that we’re looking for is someone who’s done stuff on their own . They say things like “I’ve started like going out and socializing more | I’ve started taking risks in my career | I’m doing this, I’m doing that” — measurable changes in behavior that’s different from their normal life before.

That’s what we’re looking for.

#2: Willingness to Invest in Their Own Development

Now willingness is the key here. Don’t get confused with your judgement about their ability to invest. You might think someone who’s rich is willing to invest and someone who’s poor isn’t.

I’ve found that it’s often the reverse. I’ve worked with people who could easily “afford” me and yet working with them was a drag because while investing money was easy for them, they didn’t want to invest time and energy. They wouldn’t do the homework. They wouldn’t show up on time. They ended up being worse rather than better to work with even though they seemed like “easy money.”

And this is where your neediness for money can really interfere with your ability to read whether or not someone’s going to be a good client.

Willingness to invest is partly shown by the action they take but also you want to see have they paid for their self-development before your coaching.

Have they invested in hobbies, classes and comfort-zone challenging activities? Do they believe that you get what you pay for? Do they pay for a gym membership? Do they pay for workshops? Do they take time out of their day to work on self-development? Are they taking courageous actions as a form of investment?

Or…

Do you see a pattern of them trying to get everything for free, and trying to milk you for information without giving anything back? Do they seem to want to offer you something in return for the help you’re giving for them or are they just draining you?

Someone who’s low on the spectrum tries to get everything for free without money, time or effort. They’re looking for a quick fix. They have an irresponsible victim mentality (which might change later).

Somebody who’s medium on the spectrum possibly shows a lot of willingness to invest but not a lot of evidence of having done it yet, so you’re not quite sure yet.

And someone higher is like “Yeah I paid for workshops | I used to have a coach | I’ve been to therapy | I spent all Saturday working on myself.” They’re somebody who takes time and resources from their life and applies it to self-development.

#3: Good Fit for You Personally

This is about whether or not someone should be working with you specifically. Now sometimes this can be assessed before they meet with you and sometimes it needs to be done during an initial coaching session.

The other two spectrums can be measured before you work with someone. Before you put time and energy into them you can just ask them a few questions to establish their willingness to change and invest.

But for this third one you might need to actually have a coaching session with them. I usually do want to do free coaching sessions initially, particularly to measure this. People often surprise me (both positively and negatively) so I try not to judge until we actually get together.

However, I will try to figure it out before I meet with them, too. The way I do that as I send them a lot of my content, to answer their questions. 

I send them my articles, podcasts, or videos, and if they’re really responsive to that content I can be pretty sure they’re gonna like the flavor of working with me, and now it’s just about deciding if I like the flavor of working with them. That’s when I’ll use a coaching session to figure it out.

Someone who’s low on this scale is somebody who doesn’t like your approach. When someone works with me I focus on integrity, values and outcome-independence — somebody who doesn’t fit well with me would be somebody who’s into manipulation, results-attachment, and needy behavior.

Medium on this spectrum might be somebody who’s “in your field.” They seem to be aligned with your values and now it’s just a question of whether you specifically are the right fit for them.

And then of course high is somebody who’s just like “You are my guru! You are the one I want to work with” and you also feel that way about them. They fit your ideal client model (which we won’t cover today but is something you need to figure out for yourself).

Generally it’s someone you enjoy working with. It really is that simple.

Fool’s Gold

“Fool’s Gold” is someone who’s high on one or two of the spectrums but low on at least one. Let’s look at what to do when someone’s low in each of them, so you can make this assessment when you first meet someone — even making this assessment with them is a form of helping them.

You can say “I want to see where you’re at on these three spectrums first.”

Ask them the questions you need to ask to measure that, and then you can say “I can see you’re low on the spectrum [insert here]. Before you’re ready for coaching, which is a massive change, this needs to be addressed.”

You can create or send them content and advice on how to bolster that weak area.

1. Low on willingness to change and readiness to take action

Maybe they’re like “Yep I really love the way you do things and I’m willing to pay for it” but coaching them will be a nightmare because they won’t do the homework, they probably won’t consistently show up, they won’t seem to get much out of your coaching, and it could lead to bad reviews and you feeling like you are not good enough.

The effectiveness of coaching all comes down to what they do — that’s the keystone. If they don’t do anything outside of sessions, the coaching does nothing to them.

If you’ve identified that someone’s low on willingness to change, that they have a victim-mindset, or they are just trying to take a quick-fix approach and they don’t really want to do the hard yards, the first approach has to be about helping them establish responsibility.

Use content, questions, and challenges that say “What are you gonna do about it?” Send them homework tasks before you even meet with them, saying, “Go away and do X this week and let me know how it went.” 

Continue doing this and saying, “Look, I can’t work with you until you show willingness to change and a willingness to take courageous action to enable that change. Until you show me that, we’re just talking.”

2. Someone who’s low on the investment spectrum

Now this can go in a number of different directions.

It can be they’ve just never done it before and you’ll be the first one. In that case I would suggest you ask for the full payment upfront, so this way you can actually coach them through making a big investment in themselves.

If someone is willing but “unable” because they’re struggling financially — they’re somebody with a history of investing but right now is a bad time for them because they’re unemployed or whatever — you can do payment plans. But I would recommend you only do this with someone who has a proven history of investing and it’s just right now that they’re having a problem.

But essentially again this becomes a responsibility issue: somebody’s failure to invest in themselves shows that they’re not willing to take responsibility for change. It shows mostly that they don’t have faith in themselves. They don’t believe the investment is worthwhile.

That’s why some people don’t invest in anything. When you don’t invest in something it’s because you don’t think it’s worth what it costs, and when they say “I’m not ready to invest, I can’t afford it” what they’re really saying is “I don’t believe me working on myself is going to be worth it.”

So this is the kind of work where I’d be sending them content around self-worthiness and acceptance that will help them realize that they are worth working on, they are worth getting started on. I’ll send stories of people just like them who did make changes, to give them faith that something’s possible.

When somebody’s not willing to invest financially or time-wise it’s because they’re scared that doing so will only prove that it’s not worth doing. Give them an easy way to believe that something is possible.

3. Someone who’s low on the fit for you spectrum

I wouldn’t bother doing anything with someone low on this spectrum. If someone’s not a good fit for you, don’t try and force it or change it.

Refer them on to someone else. Build a relationship with another coach by giving them clients who are already high in the other two spectrums.

They’re just not good at for you — trust me, you’ll be desperate to take people sometimes because of finances or self-worth issues and you’ll take these guys who aren’t really a great fit for you, and it’s not really the kind of work you want to be doing but you’re just going to pay the bills… it’s not worth it in the long term. I promise you.

My full blueprint for a first time coaching session

Below is the basic structure that my coaching sessions have when I’m meeting with someone for the first time. This is different to other sessions in the way it begins, but similar to normal coaching from about point 5 onwards.

Temperature check

The first thing I do is establish how each of us is feeling about the call itself. I’m not a big fan of using manufactured small talk to warm them up. I like to get straight into it.

So I usually start by sharing how I’m feeling (e.g. “I’m happy to finally meet you in person and go through what we were emailing about in more detail”), and then I ask them how they’re feeling about having the call, specifically.

I’ll normalise anything they’re feeling. If they say they’re nervous, I’ll respond with, “Good! That means this is important to you”.

Previous experience

Next, I want to know about what they’ve done in the past that was similar, and how they were affected by that. I’ll ask if they’ve had coaching, therapy, mentorship, or group programs before.

If they say yes, I’ll ask them about that experience. I’m looking for anything that might need to be dealt with prior to our session. For example, if they had 3 years of therapy but it isn’t working any more, I’ll point out that coaching is different to therapy.

Overall, I want them to detach this session from any previous experience, and to treat it like a new event.

Expectations

I’ll then lay out what I expect from them. It’s not much; usually just honesty and courage. I’ll point out that I can only help them as much as they’ll let me — the more vulnerable they are, the more I can help.

I’ll ask them to share their expectations or hopes about what the session will be like. If there are any concerns raised, I’ll deal with them here.

For example, if they say “I want you to hold me to account”, I’ll point out that as a coach it’s my job to help them hold themselves to account, and it’s their responsibility to make the most out of the session.

Remove sales/obligation fears

Most people meeting with a coach for the first time will have anxiety, anticipating some sort of high-pressure sales tactic or pitch. This will distract them throughout the session, especially if you’re the kind of coach who hides your prices until the end of the session.

They’ll be suspicious during the conversation that you’re using tactics to increase the likelihood of a sale, like if you share a story about previous clients’ success, or hint at work you two might do in future sessions.

Firstly, my fees are obvious and available on my website, and I prefer that they know what I charge before I meet them, so there’s no unpleasant shocks and I don’t end up dealing with time-wasters. Many coaches don’t do this. I like to be up front.

Secondly, I want both the client and I to treat this first session as a no-obligation low-pressure event. To achieve this, I state up front that there genuinely won’t be any sales conversations in this session, and that we won’t even decide if we want to work together further until after they’ve taken action following the session.

Watch them breathe a sigh of relief when you do this!

If they ask “Why not?” (this has never happened to me), you can tell them that you have high standards for who you’ll work with, and also that you don’t want to sign up someone who isn’t enthusiastic and certain it will be valuable.

From here on out is the framework for any coaching session, no matter how many times you’ve met before…

Choose a single topic

We often feel pressured in the first session to make as big of an impact as possible, with the neediness driving us to “get the client” by impressing them. This usually leads coaches to pack too much into a session, making it overwhelming and ultimately worthless.

Or, coaches allow a session to wander from problem to problem in a completely unrestrained exploration, using a lot of time without accomplishing much.

A question I nearly always ask is something like this: “If there was only ONE thing we could talk about today, and that thing would have the biggest impact on your life right now, what is that thing?” I even email this to them prior to the session to prime them for it.

If a client gives me a list of different things, I force them to choose just one. If we successfully deal with the chosen topic earlier than expected, I’ll end the session rather than use the “extra” time.

Coaching is about quality, not quantity. Go deep rather than wide.

Get more specific

What will often happen when you ask them to choose one thing to discuss is that they’ll panic about wanting to get the most out of this precious (free) session, and so will give you a major big-ticket item, like “I want to be more confident” or “I need to stop people-pleasing” or “I want to be a better father”.

While it’s tempting to tackle these big issues, they are really much better dealt with one small piece at a time. So insist that your client be more specific, and narrow down the topic to a very manageable and real-time problem.

Coaching uses “small” problems to solve big problems. Everything is a fractal, meaning that whatever petty or small issue they have right now is representative of much deeper core issues.

Their beef with their boss (small) represents their inability to respect themselves (big). Use the small specific issue to dig deep into the big core issue, rather than trying to tackle the big core issue directly.

Or, as I like to tell them, the best way to eat a whale is one bite at a time.

Why? Why? Why?

A key principle of powerful coaching: their first answer is always a lie.

This means you cannot take their first topic suggestion seriously and run the whole session on their first response. You must dig, assuming that the first answer was not the full truth or the most important truth.

I like the idea of the 3 Why’s. Whatever their answer, you respond like a curious preschooler. Why? Yeah, but why? And why does that happen? And why do you care about that? Etc.

If someone says, “I want to get a girlfriend”, you say, “Why do you want a girlfriend?” instead of just jumping into dating solutions. When they respond with, “Because I feel like I’m missing something important”, you say, “Why do you think having a girlfriend is the important thing you’re missing?”

Basically, act like their answer makes no sense to you, like they’re not even sure what the problem actually is (because this is true).

You’ll feel it when you get to the real problem. It will sound deep, part of a lifelong struggle that started in childhood, and something with tentacles that reach into all areas of their life. The “need for a girlfriend” will eventually be deconstructed until you find that underneath it’s all about the idea of not being good enough as you are — that’s a real issue worth working on.

Define the problem

Once you feel like you’ve hit the real issue, just reflect it back to them. Give them your interpretation of it, and cite the examples you’ve seen so far. Share your own experiences, or those of other similar clients, to reinforce the normality of the issue (this will also show that this is solvable).

One of the simplest yet most powerful coaching techniques is just to help someone understand their problem clearly. Most people can solve their own problems most of the time… if they know what the problem is.

Courage vs Awareness

If the person has been trying hard and taking bold actions to solve this, but they’re not getting anywhere, then they have an awareness issue: they don’t really understand the problem.

If someone can clearly articulate the issue and show that they understand it, but they’re not doing anything about it despite claiming to be desperate to solve it, then they have a courage issue: they’re too scared to take uncomfortable action.

Reflect this idea to the client and let them know which one you think they are. This will seed the kind of work they need to focus on: either increased self-awareness or increased courage.

Current self vs Ideal self

Once the problem is clear, ask the client to describe to you the person they’d be if the problem was solved (or appropriately managed). Get them to paint a picture of this person in detail, including how their daily life has changed, how they feel about themselves (e.g. their baseline confidence), and how their usual results would change.

What they’re doing is describing the goal of the coaching: which is to become this person.

When someone says, “I can’t afford it” in response to your coaching offer, what they’re really saying is “I am not convinced this is valuable enough”. This either happens because you suck at coaching (surprisingly rare), or because you didn’t help them find something worth getting coaching for (common).

When you ask a random person how much a generic coaching session is “worth”, they’ll probably guess something in the range of $80-$150. But when you ask them how much it’s worth to become this person they’ve always dreamed of being but never thought possible, they’ll say it’s priceless.

So make sure you work towards that long-term vision right from the first session, and help both of you to see solving smaller problems as steps towards that bigger goal, rather than seeing them as completed goals on their own.

When you do get around to offering paid coaching, it should be something along the lines of, “We’ll work together to uncover that confident, authentic and powerful man you just described to me. I won’t settle for less than that!”

Bridge the gap

At this point in the session, the balance of conversation will move from them to you. You’ve been doing most of the listening up until this point, and now it’s time to give back.

Remember, if they knew how to get from where they are to where they want to be, they wouldn’t be talking to you. So you can rest assured that no matter how intimidatingly successful they might appear to you, they still will benefit massively from your coaching.

Now that they’ve described the core problem (who they are right now) and what it would look like if the problem was solved (who they wish they were), you can map out some basic ideas as to what would need to happen to bridge that gap.

In my experience, you will see consistent patterns that apply to nearly all humans.

Usually, they have compromised on their own principles (what I call “core values”) in order to get certain outcomes. Usually, they are engaged in some form of deception or dishonesty that has eroded their life over time. And nearly always, they’re fearfully avoiding some form of discomfort — a pattern of avoidance going back a long time to a traumatic event.

This is where you get bold as a coach, and tell them the hard truths. Let them know that this is no quick fix or easy ride. Be honest about the specific suffering you believe they will have to experience. But also let them know that you believe it’s possible (if you’re an authentic coach you should already have walked this path yourself, and still be walking it).

Let them know what key beliefs would need to be challenged, what changes would need to be made to their management of emotions, and what measurable shifts in behaviour will be necessary. Give them a diagnosis and a prescription.

Give fully. Give them enough that they could do it on their own if they really wanted to. Admit that they could and that they don’t need you.

Then simply let them know how much working with you would accelerate their progress. I often say something like, “This took me about 7 years on my own, so I try to make sure it only takes a few months for my clients”.

Small step forward

To wrap the session up with something truly valuable, you need to switch the focus back to them and ask for a specific action they could take in the immediate future to put into practice everything that’s been discussed in the session.

This may have already been identified earlier in the session, in which case this part of the session will just be about acknowledging that.

You’re looking for something uncomfortable but not terrifying. They should feel it, but not so much that they won’t be able to go through with it.

Also, make sure it’s under their control. Clients will often suggest a reactive goal, as in they will do something if something specific happens first, like a reaction to a possible event. This leaves the door open for avoiding potential challenges. Instead, insist they take an action where they will initiate and make it happen, something that does not rely too much on others.

Generally I find the first action to be something like speaking an honest truth, or getting started in a small way on a big project, or even just reflecting on past experiences with a new eye.

Commitment to action

Once they’ve named the action, ask if they’re committed to it. When and where is this going to happen? What if something gets in the way? What’s a smaller back-up option if needed?

And then reflect that commitment back to them: “OK, so if I email you on Monday you’ll be able to tell me all about the confrontation you initiated with your brother, right?”

Check in with how they feel in general about the session and the committed action. If you’ve really served them and they’re a good fit for coaching, they should be straining at the lead like an impatient dog at this point, eager to get on with it. If they’re not enthusiastic, you might need to double-check that you’ve chosen the right level of courage and the right type of action.

Follow up session

A simple principle in coaching is “No dead ends.” Never say goodbye and just hope that they’ll initiate later.

Despite being keen for coaching, the level of investment and courage required often causes potential clients to start doubting themselves after the high of the session wears off. Plus, real life gets in the way, and their fears and insecurities will persuade them to put off coming back to you.

So pre-book a second session during the first one. You can tell them that if either of you changes your mind before then, you’ll cancel it. Let them know that if they don’t take the action then they should cancel the session. Show them that you only deal with quality clients.

It’s only in that second session that you’ll talk about paid coaching (unless they insist during the first session because they’re so keen for it). And even that is only after a powerful reflection over how the action went and what it brings up for further work (i.e. the follow up is another full coaching session!)

If, during the first session, they are super keen and begging to know how to work with you more, this is a good sign. But don’t get too excited. You really should have some standards about them being action-takers, because there’s almost nothing worse than working long term with a client that you have to drag kicking and screaming into change.

I’ll only sign someone up during the first session if my decade-plus worth of experience and instinct tells me they’re right for it. You won’t have this instinct yet. But you might enroll them early if they have previous proof of self-development, like they’ve done coaching before with someone else, or they have clearly taken courageous developmental actions prior to meeting you.

Be honest with them about how you feel based on this first session. I might say something like, “My instinct and experience tells me I’d love working with you, that you’re my kind of dude, but I want to make sure we decide this calmly and rationally, so let’s see what happens between now and the next time we speak and by then I’ll know for sure”.

And that’s how I do the first session!

The Naive Enquirer: Applying Socratic Inquiry to coaching

Coaching is as much about asking the right questions as it is about giving advice. One of the most effective questioning techniques comes from the Socratic method—an approach pioneered by Socrates himself. Today, we’re going to explore a coaching technique I call The Naive Enquirer—a method that helps clients question their own beliefs by making them explain and justify their thinking.

This technique challenges limiting beliefs without directly confronting them, making it a powerful tool for coaches. Even if you’re not a coach, you can use it to help people in your life without imposing your views on them.

The Core Idea Behind the Naive Enquirer

The Naive Enquirer is a method to use whenever someone makes a truthful claim, a statement of fact, or a belief that appears to be unhelpful or limiting. When someone believes something to be true, and that belief prevents them from doing what they need to do, it’s time to step in with this technique.

This approach requires you to adopt the mindset that they are wrong—because we are all wrong in some way. Socrates famously said, “The only thing we know for certain is that we know nothing for certain.” He assumed that every belief people held was at least partly flawed, and he picked apart their reasoning by asking questions that challenged their assumptions.

Essentially, you play Devil’s Advocate against a belief that isn’t serving them well.

Three Key Principles of the Naive Enquirer

To effectively apply this technique in coaching sessions, I use three core principles:

1. Define the terms
2. Ask for reason and evidence
3. Explore the exceptions

Let’s break these down in detail.

1. Define the Terms

Whenever a client uses significant words related to their belief, ask them to define what those words mean. This serves two important purposes:

• As a coach, you may assume you understand what they mean, but their definition might be different from yours. Understanding their unique meaning is crucial.
• The client may not even fully understand what they mean by their own words, which can reveal gaps in their reasoning.

For example, if a client says, “I need to get into a relationship,” you should ask, “What do you mean by relationship?” While it seems like a universally understood word, their version of a relationship may be very different from yours.

Sometimes, an entire coaching session can be spent defining a single term. I once had a client who said, “I need to do things to a certain standard—I’m a perfectionist.” When I asked her to define what “a certain standard” meant, she couldn’t. We spent half an hour trying to define it, and she realized that she had set a standard that didn’t actually exist—making it impossible to achieve.

2. Ask for Reason and Evidence

Once terms are defined, the next step is to challenge their statements of fact and assumptions of truth. These beliefs are often embedded within their reasoning and go unquestioned.

For example, if a client says, “I really struggle to get into a relationship because I’m a loser,” there’s a hidden belief underneath: That being in a relationship is essential for happiness.

You can challenge this by asking:

• “Where’s the evidence that says you need to be in a relationship?”
• “How did you come to that conclusion?”
• “What’s the logical argument behind that?”

Even if you personally believe relationships are important, challenge yourself to question that belief alongside them. Adopt a naive mindset, as if you’ve never encountered the concept before. Approach it with curiosity, saying something like:

“Why would you need to be in a relationship? Tell me about it, help me understand.”

This forces them to articulate their reasoning—and often, they’ll realize they’ve never actually questioned it themselves.

3. Explore the Exceptions

Many limiting beliefs are framed as absolute truths:

• “Nobody likes me.”
• “I’m too old to get a promotion.”
• “If I approach a woman, she’ll think it’s harassment.”

The next step is to look for exceptions to their belief. Ask:

• “Has there ever been a time when someone liked you?”
• “Has anyone ever gotten a promotion at your age?”
• “Do you know for sure that every woman would react negatively?”

Often, the client will recall a contradiction in their own life. If someone says, “I never stand up for myself,” you can respond with:

“Tell me about one time when you did.”

There’s always an exception. If they say, “Oh, when I was 21, my mom tried to make me go to university, but I refused.” You then highlight the contradiction:

“So, on one hand, you say you never stand up for yourself, but on the other, you have a clear memory of standing up for yourself. What was different about that time?”

The exception contains the recipe for success. If they’ve done it once, they can do it again.

Breaking Down Beliefs, One Step at a Time

The goal of the Naive Enquirer is to weaken certainty about limiting beliefs. If someone is 100% sure of something that’s holding them back, your job is to bring that certainty down—99%, 98%, 97%—just enough to open the door for change.

By exposing exceptions and contradictions, you help them see that their belief is not absolute. Instead of focusing on why they can’t, shift the conversation toward how they could.

Conclusion

The Naive Enquirer is a powerful coaching technique that encourages deep self-examination. To summarize:

1. Define the terms—Make sure you and your client both understand what they really mean.
2. Ask for reason and evidence—Challenge their assumptions and hidden beliefs.
3. Explore the exceptions—Find contradictions and expose the possibility of change.

This method takes practice, but when mastered, it can break through limiting beliefs with remarkable effectiveness. To enhance your ability with this approach, I recommend studying cognitive biases, as they will add even more depth to your questioning skills.

Remember: Don’t believe anything anyone says at face value. Question every term, challenge every conclusion, and always look for the exceptions. That’s how you help people grow.

How to sustain a successful coaching business

I started my coaching business in 2013. It’s been a hell of a ride, but since about 2019 it’s been a lot easier, stable and successful.

Especially since my daughter Chloe came into our world, I’ve been working much less (probably average about 6 hours per day). That’s the beauty of entrepreneurship that I was always seeking: time freedom.

I reflect at the turn of each year and try to share key lessons I’ve learned on the streets about how to run a business. I’ll summarise some ideas I’ve had about how to have a life once you’ve already gotten past the start-up phase and now have a stable, successful business.

1) Question the need to “scale up”

I was always feeling pressured to take my business to “the next level” whenever I felt even remotely comfortable or stable. There seemed to be a consensus in the entrepreneurship world that bigger is always better. Yet that never aligned with my values – I think constant growth just means we consume the world.

Eventually, I came to realise that scaling my business up would take me away from doing what I loved. I’ve done this before: I took a promotion to become a Manager when I was a Senior Probation Officer. I preferred being an SPO – being a manager took me away from face-to-face work with offenders, the work I loved.

Scaling up my coaching business would mean focusing on group programs and hiring other coaches to do the work for me. Only a money-obsessed person would think this is a good idea. I love working with clients 1:1, so now that I can do that successfully, I should go deeper (e.g. finding ever more challenging clients) rather than higher.

2) Look to reduce time and expenses rather than increase work and income

There’s no point in making more money if you don’t even have time to spend it, or to enjoy what you bought with it. I’ve seen so many people make a big deal about how much money they have yet they still work too hard to even enjoy life or spend quality time with family, friends and hobbies. What’s the point of that?

Over the last few years, I stopped asking “How can I earn more money?” and started asking “How can I create more free time?” I set myself a goal: make a business that requires only a few hours per day work (and those hours must be meaningful and enjoyable). That changed my approach completely.

I started cutting tasks that didn’t matter. I used apps and AI to reduce workload. I spent less. I increased my prices and focused on high value clients, and stopped wasting time building connections with people who weren’t amazing to work with. Ironically, this approach not only freed up my time but somehow resulted in much more income.

3) Live the ideal way now

At the beginning I used to work 90+ hours per week… to try to achieve a goal of only working a few hours per week. It’s incredible that I couldn’t see the contradiction there; it’s a totally backward approach.

So instead of “building up” to something in the future, I started asking myself how to make it happen right now. If I want more free time, I challenged myself to free up some time today rather than working harder now to somehow work less later. If I wanted to one day work with impressive clients, I need to approach them today rather than work with mediocre people in the hope that they’ll somehow upgrade over time spontaneously. And so on.

I prioritised being a dad and forced my business to work around this. I put my morning workout first so that my health got the best of me before my business did. I started living as if I’d already arrived at the completion of my goals, and strangely enough it was like instant success. With the right perspective, you can make it happen rather than waiting, and it’s certainly better than doing the opposite of your goals in hope of achieving them.  

4) Essentialism – only do what matters 

I’ve been doing something from the very beginning that has proven to be the most important admin task I do: every 3 months I review all my clients and – with particular focus on my favourites – I assess where they came from, how we met, and what we did to build our relationship. I look at the essentials behind creating great clients.

And the evidence is clear. In my case, focusing on putting out great videos, while trying my best to give value to my Brojo community and communicating personally with people I’m interested in, are the most important things for me to be doing. Nothing else matters.

Arguing on social media doesn’t help. Building a website didn’t help. Publishing books doesn’t help (though I do this for my own enjoyment). My LinkedIn profile, Instagram page, and Facebook pages don’t help. Even my blog doesn’t really help (though it’s a great library for my clients). All of these activities are non-essential to my business, i.e. I don’t need to do them at all.

When I spend just an hour or two per day making podcasts and videos, personally messaging Brojo members, and taking good care of my current clients, my business thrives. I don’t need anything else.

5) Imagine your death-bed

It’s easy to get lost in the noise of business without taking time to ask, “Is this what I should be doing right now?” And I don’t just mean focusing on productivity or essentialism . I mean zooming out from time to time to reconsider the bigger picture of your life.

This current activity you’re doing: Does it matter? Does it really help? Will you remember it in a few months or years? Will really bad things happen if you don’t do it? Does it give meaning to your life and work? Is it being done at the cost of something better?

Every now and then I imagine myself in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines, feeling my life drain slowly from my body and reminiscing over my time on this earth and in this job. What will matter then? What will I wish I had done more or less of?

This led me to prioritise my family, take better care of my body, let go of changing the world (i.e. a thinly veiled self-deception for a neediness to be famous), stop trying so hard, do less admin, and spend more time just chilling out.

6) Money insecurities aren’t solved by more money

As one of my coaches once told me about making more money: “Same problems, more zeroes”. Of course, like most people, I didn’t believe this until I experienced it. Once my business revenue exceeded 6-figures – a number I expected to provide financial security feelings – nothing changed. Mentally, I was as stressed about income and savings etc. as I had ever been. And I could clearly see that a million or a billion dollars couldn’t solve inner insecurities either.

As I discuss in my Financial Freedom course, money insecurities are solved by resourcefulness: living in a way that you can solve problems with minimal resources available; an ability to make the most of whatever’s available; a cleverness in solving problems with minimum expenditure of time, money and energy.

Instead of trying to make more money, I switched to trying to achieve more with less effort and resources. From simple practical things like spending less or waiting for good deals, through to more complex things like bartering and negotiating, I came to realise that feeling secure with money isn’t about the amount of money or income you have, but your ability to make any amount work well.

7) Master a specific trade

I always teach my coaching proteges: the most important thing in building a coaching business is to Always Be Coaching – ABC.

If you want your business to thrive as the years tick by, you should aim to become the best at what you do. To eliminate the competition, find something that no one else does (or does well) and master that, solving a problem that occurs for your preferred clients that they desperately want solved.

I hate the term “life coach” because it’s so general and grandiose. No one is an expert at life. But there are niches within life that one can master in a lifetime. In my case: self-confidence, specifically the confidence achieved via living with integrity when you are a people-pleaser or Nice Guy.

I’ve done thousands of coaching on this very specific topic with a very specific group of people. I’ve tackled almost every potential problem that comes up in this area, dozens of times. I’ve heard it told from every possible perspective, from every major culture, country and religion around the world, from men and women, young and old, rich and poor alike. I can say without any sense of grandiosity that I’ve mastered this topic.

And, more importantly, I help my people better than anyone else does. So long as I keep learning and developing, while keeping my ego in check by constantly looking to improve, my “competition” will never catch up, so I’m in a class of my own.

Anyone can achieve this level of mastery if you put in the time and effort. I’m not special; I’m just focused and determined.

8) Your clients matter most (unless you have employees)

Whatever task you’re currently doing, stop and ask yourself: “How, exactly, does this benefit my favourite clients?”

About one third of my income comes from repeat business. My repeat clients are often also my most profitable and most enjoyable to work with. A coaching business is built on a few great clients who keep coming back for more, more than anything else. So they are the priority: serve your best clients first and foremost, and keep their needs in mind with every business decision you make.

I don’t have employees, but I generally agree with Richard Branson: the customer is NOT always right. Protect your employees (in my case it’s my wife and a few consultants who assist me) before serving your customers, because they ARE the business.  

9) Consistency beats one-hit wonders

I’ve never had a video or podcast or anything else go “viral”. I’ve never scored a huge, one-time client that provides a year’s worth of income in a single hit. I’ve basically built my business one small brick at a time, with very few “breakthroughs” of any significance. My gains have come in terms of 1-5% increases, nothing more.

And that’s just fine.

Because small gains accumulate nicely over the years, and there is a compound interest effect. My YouTube channel doesn’t have millions of subscribers, neither does my podcast, but they have accumulated a nice little following of die-hard loyalists who watch every video and listen to every episode (and often end up becoming coaching clients). The Brojo family numbers only in the hundreds, and yet some of the veterans have been involved since 2014.

Consistency builds trust and loyalty. Consistency has proved far more important than fanciness or big breaks. Just deliver good value, over and over again, every day, week, and month, and have the patience required for those small growth gains to build into something massive.

There’s a reason one-hit wonder pop stars usually disappear after that first big song. They didn’t have any real substance. For the opposite reason, people keep listening to the Stones and the Beatles to this very day. Many of their songs are just ok, some are amazing. A fewalbums hit, most sort of flopped. But the key is they just kept pumping out the good stuff over and over again.

10) Know which numbers matter

Facebook and Instagram followers don’t mean anything. Likes and dislikes on your YouTube videos or posts mean very little. The amount of people who said No to your offer tells you very little about it’s worth. The number of hours you work per day is a meaningless measurement.

Here’s what actually matters:

• Does your total spending exceed your revenue?
• Have you reached out to build a relationship with at least 5 people today?
• What percentage of the people you connect with are offered a trial coaching session within a few days of meeting them? Is it 100% yet?
• How many people go from a free trial session to paid coaching?
• Out of 10, how would you rate your clients in terms of how enjoyable they are to work with?
• Where do most of your clients come from? How did the relationship build?
• Which approach to giving value leads directly to the most clients?
• How often and consistently are you putting out valuable content?
• Financially speaking, what’s the best use of your time? What’s the worst?

Measure these numbers and improve them. Ignore everything else.

And on that note, I’ve completely stopped comparing myself to other coaches or similar practitioners in my field. There’s just no point. If I want to learn something, I can hire a coach or mentor, so there’s no educational gain in comparing myself to other coaches.

I’ve often heard my coach-trainees say they feel intimidated by other coaches’ outward-facing numbers, e.g. they have a huge number of Facebook followers. What they don’t realise is that these numbers often hide a struggling business. The most successful coaches in the world are often invisible to the public.

11) Authenticity outlasts marketing tricks

I’ve learned all the marketing bullshit. I know how to create scarcity. I know to focus on benefits rather than features. I know how to tell a story. I know how to target your pain points and make you feel like they are a problem that needs to be solved as quickly as possible. I know how to strategically place testimonials to counter your objections.

And every time I’ve tried using these tactics, I just felt yuck.

Yeah, they sometimes “work”, in that they persuade someone to work with you. But is that what you want: to seduce your clients with psychological traps and guilt-trips? I don’t.

Eventually, my values managed to make me see sense. It’s hard when you’re struggling to put food on the table – the neediness will lead you to do whatever it takes to make a buck. However, this isn’t even the most effective approach.

You know what really works? Having integrity. Being consistently valuable. Being so honest people are surprised by it, and they can’t think of anyone else in your field who’s as up front as you are. Respecting people and giving them a no-pressure offer that they can easily say No to. Being direct about your pricing and willing to discuss it in detail. Taking your time and letting people arrive at a Yes when they’re ready, but never being ashamed to offer something you know they’ll benefit from.

Most of all: treating people like human fucking beings that you actually fucking like, rather than like bank vaults that you’re trying to crack open.

12) You don’t need to defend yourself

Hey, YouTube comments section: I want my 5 years back!

I’ve wasted so much time arguing and defending my beliefs and approach. Why? Because people who would never work with me have challenged what I say. Is that a good reason to neglect my family, friends and clients? Spending hours in the comments section debating with a guy who uses a picture of a furry as his avatar and only communicates in all CAPS?

Only a small niche of the world is going to find your content helpful. No one else actually matters (to your business). Providing you keep up to date with the latest in scientific research and logical reasoning, and keep educating yourself and updating your ideas, you don’t actually need to worry about someone thinking that you’re “wrong”. What they’re really saying is: “I will never be your client so don’t bother communicating with me, find someone else.”

Of course, I’m open to challenge and disagreement… from my clients and community and experts in my field. But Jimbo on Facebook, who hates me because I didn’t have nice things to say about his cult, can be safely ignored.

13) Your business is only as healthy as you are

Especially relevant to coaching: you ARE the product.

If you’re tired, distracted, sick, bored or grieving, so is your coaching. It doesn’t mean that you have to be firing on all cylinders all of the time – having a baby has shown me that I can still coach effectively while sleep-deprived – but if you’re wondering how well your business is doing, the answer is: it’s doing as well as you are.

Neediness is particularly devastating. If you don’t manage your spending and ego effectively to remove your desperation for money and success, it will infect your coaching like poison, and will probably be the main reason you just can’t seem to get new clients even if you’re good at coaching.

Make sure, as best as you can, that you go into every session relaxed, prepared, and willing to lose the client to do what is right.

14) Let go of changing the world

I used to get so stressed about the overall IMPACT of my work. I had egotistical visions of becoming the next Marcus Aurelius – a philosophical king who shaped the world for the better. There’s a couple of problems with this.

Firstly, Aurelius himself said we all go to dust and are eventually forgotten, and that eventually one day the human race will go extinct… so what exactly is the end-game of becoming a legend? To be remembered for a short time? Why would you want that?

And secondly, despite Aurelius ruling basically the free world with a Stoic philosophy for many decades and being celebrated today, the world is still full of greedy, destructive and harmful people. His work barely made a difference to the human tendency to be a bit awful. It might not actually be possible to shift the tidal wave momentum of the human race.

I had to stop at some point in the last couple of years and ask myself: Should I be focused on changing the whole world, or just helping a few people a little bit? Turns out the latter is far more realistic, achievable, enjoyable, meaningful, and worthwhile. Trying to change the world is just a recipe for a headache, nothing more. If Aurelius couldn’t do it, what chances do I have?

15) Always ask: Is this sustainable?

And finally, if you want to be in this game for the long-term, you have to challenge anything you’re doing and regularly ask yourself, “Can I keep this up?”

I couldn’t keep up long hours. I couldn’t keep working with less than ideal clients. I couldn’t keep putting off my health and family to do more work. The end results would have been disastrous.

I must always think sustainable. 5 hours’ work a day is sustainable. Putting health first will keep me going. My family is what matters most now and forever.

The 1-Year Coaching Mastery Program for Service Entrepreneurs: Build a $100K/Year Coaching Business with Integrity, No Paid Ads Required

WHAT IS THIS PROGRAM?

The 12-Month Coaching Mastery Program is an intensive, hands-on training designed to help you:

✅ Master both foundational and advanced coaching techniques—so you can create deeply transformational conversations that change lives.
✅ Implement a sustainable, high-integrity marketing system—so you can attract and enroll clients without manipulative sales tactics or paid advertising.
✅ Cultivate the confidence, leadership, and clarity needed—so you can build a thriving coaching business without fear, doubt, or hesitation.

This program provides everything you need to become a highly skilled coach with a full-time, profitable practice based on authentic relationships, real value, and a proven process for attracting clients.

WHO IS THIS FOR?

This program is perfect for you if:

✔ You have some coaching experience and want to go pro.
✔ You’re serious about making coaching your full-time career.
✔ You’re passionate about personal growth and helping people transform.
✔ You want to build an authentic business, not chase quick-fix marketing hacks.
✔ You’re ready to invest in yourself with the same dedication you expect from your clients.

Who is this NOT for?

❌ You’re unwilling to invest time, money, and effort into developing yourself.
❌ You have zero coaching experience and haven’t even tried coaching yet.
❌ You’re afraid to reach out, connect, and build relationships with potential clients.
❌ You’re still unsure if coaching is your long-term career path.
❌ You believe success should happen quickly and effortlessly.

WHY LEARN FROM ME?

I started coaching from scratch in 2013. I had no credentials, no business experience, no online following—just a passion for helping people. Here’s how my journey unfolded:

🚀 2013 – Took on my first coaching clients for free.
💡 2014 – Landed my first paying clients & quit my job… then ran out of money.
📈 2015 – Had my first five-figure month… then ran out of money again.
🎤 2017 – Started running workshops & group coaching programs.
💰 2019 – Hit my first six-figure year as a coach.
📣 2020 – Clients started finding me through my content.
🏆 2025 – I’ve built a trusted audience, trained multiple coaches, and created a business that thrives without paid ads.

This journey was NOT built on tricks, gimmicks, or expensive advertising. It was built on mastering real coaching skills, creating powerful content, and developing long-term client relationships.

Now, I’ll show you exactly how to do the same.

WHAT WILL YOU LEARN?

Coaching Mastery

✔ Advanced listening & questioning techniques
✔ Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) strategies
✔ Overcoming limiting beliefs & self-sabotage
✔ Story-telling and deep connection techniques
✔ Creating cognitive dissonance & deep transformation
✔ Reframing, role modeling, and boundary-setting

Business & Marketing (Without Ads)

✔ Building genuine client relationships (without sleazy sales tactics)
✔ Having powerful enrollment conversations (so clients happily invest in you)
✔ Structuring coaching packages & pricing your services
✔ Creating content that naturally attracts clients
✔ Scaling to workshops, group coaching, and online programs

Personal Growth & Confidence

✔ Overcoming Imposter Syndrome & fear of rejection
✔ Speaking with authority & leading with confidence
✔ Developing rock-solid discipline & mindset resilience
✔ Letting go of perfectionism & attachment to outcomes
✔ Operating with full integrity & authenticity

HOW IT WORKS

This 12-month program is divided into two phases:

Phase 1: Mastering Coaching & Building Your Foundation (First 6 months)

🔹 Weekly 1:1 coaching/training sessions (60-90 minutes)
🔹 Practice coaching real clients (starting with free clients)
🔹 Master powerful coaching techniques with live feedback
🔹 Develop your unique coaching style and confidence
🔹 Start building real client relationships (without paid ads)
🔹 Transition to paid clients (minimum $150/hr by month 6)

Phase 2: Business Growth & Full-Time Coaching (Final 6 months)

🔹 Refine your enrollment process & high-integrity sales approach
🔹 Develop content that attracts your ideal clients
🔹 Structure your coaching offers, pricing, and packages
🔹 Create a sustainable system for long-term client growth

By the end of the program, you’ll be running a full-time coaching business with consistent income, real confidence, and a strong client base.

THE INVESTMENT

The full 12-month program is $25,000 USD.
(Payment plans available with 5% fee: $1,000/month minimum.)

💡 Why is this investment worth it? Because this is your future.

Coaching is not a hobby—it’s a professional career. If you’re serious about making a full-time living as a coach, this is the level of investment you need to make.

🚀 Within 6 months, you’ll already be earning from coaching.
💰 By the end of the year, you’ll be charging premium rates and running a profitable coaching business.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE PROGRAM?

When you complete the program, you become a VIP Client for life.

🎯 Lifetime free access to my groups, courses & programs
🎯 Continued support whenever you need guidance
🎯 Connection with other successful coaches I’ve trained

You’re not just getting a course—you’re getting ongoing mentorship, a network, and a proven pathway to success.

MY GUARANTEE

✅ Full refund within the first 30 days if the program isn’t right for you.
✅ You will be making money as a coach within 6 months (if you follow the system).
✅ If you complete the program and still aren’t making a full-time income, I will continue working with you at no extra cost until you do.

READY TO APPLY?

If you’re serious about becoming a full-time, highly-paid coach, let’s talk.

📩 Email me at dan@brojo.org to apply.

This program is by application only. I only work with two dedicated individuals each year. If you’re ready to take this seriously, I’d love to hear from you.