April 10, 2024
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Being a business coach isn’t all leadership talks and breakthroughs. There’s also the grind behind the scenes. Scouting for clients. Answering emails. Planning the week’s schedule. Writing invoices. You started your coaching business to help people. But now, it just feels like you’re drowning in tasks. And every hour you spend doing them is one you lose with clients.
Still, that admin work is part of building a coaching business. It’s just reality. You can’t avoid it. But you can make it smoother. The key is to make the “business side” of it lighter. Cleaner. Easier. Here are a few ways to make it happen so you can get back to working with your clients.
Scheduling sounds simple. But then your week fills up. Now, you’re hopping between calls. Rescheduling clients who cancel at the last minute. Balancing time zones. You send five messages just to confirm one session. That’s not a good use of your time. Or your focus.
Automation helps out a ton. Set up tools like Calendly or Acuity. These allow clients to see your open slots. Then, they book sessions themselves. You can also sync calendars and set cancellation rules.
The best part? It runs in the background while you coach. No extra time or effort needed. It all just shows up on your calendar.
When you start out, you want to help everyone. You want to be accessible. You make custom offers for every new client. The flexibility is easy to keep track of at first. But soon, it becomes chaotic. Different rates. Different packages. Different durations. It all gets stressful and difficult to stay on top of.
That’s where standard yet smart pricing strategies come in. Create two or three different packages for new clients to choose from. Keep them simple.
For example, offer a three-month or six-month growth plan. Or perhaps a 5-session or 10-session leadership series. Give each one a clear goal and its own price. Explain what’s included. What’s not. The clarity helps clients choose faster.
Tiering this way also helps you sell confidently. You’ll stop hesitating when someone asks for your rates. You’ll sound more professional.
Getting paid shouldn’t be a hassle. But for many coaches, it is. You’re tracking invoices. Waiting for transfers. Constantly reminding clients to pay. It’s awkward. What’s more, it’s time-consuming.
Need something smoother? Look into setting up coaching merchant payment services. These platforms let you accept a whole range of payment methods. Credit cards. Recurring payments. They even take care of automatic billing. You stop chasing payments and start running your business like a pro.
The start of a coaching relationship sets the tone. But onboarding new clients can eat up time. The back-and-forth on email. The forms. The payments. The small tasks pile up. It’s one of the biggest business challenges coaches face. Not to mention, it’s tedious to try to sell your packages to new people.
The fix is to build a system once. Then, use it again and again. Have templates at the ready for welcome emails. Build a short intake form. Google Forms is great for that. Keep your contract ready to send.
Clients will feel cared for. They’re guided from the start. At the same time, you’ll feel calm instead of rushed. When onboarding is a well-oiled machine, every new client starts on the right foot.
Coaches deal with more client details than they realise. Notes about learnings. Short-term and long-term goals. Session recaps. Feedback. It all adds up fast. And when it’s scattered in random files, you lose track. You won’t be on top of each client’s individual progress and needs. That can hurt your client relationships more than you think.
A CRM tool can bring it all together. You can log session notes and track milestones in one clean dashboard. Some even let clients view their own progress. Not so tech-savvy? A spreadsheet with clear details per client will do, too.
This level of organisation aids in building trust later. You walk into each session knowing exactly where your client left off. They feel remembered. Valued. That’s what turns a client into a long-term partner.
Content keeps your coaching business alive. It gets more eyes on your offerings. But it can take over your time if you let it. The secret? Creating your social media content in batches. Instead of creating one post here and there, set aside a time block per day to curate your photos and videos. That’s it. One hour. No multitasking.
Start by choosing a theme for the week. Maybe it’s motivation. Maybe it’s leadership. Then, in that one-hour block, create as much as you can around that topic. Write a few posts. Record a quick video. Edit it to make it more engaging. Use content creation tools to make the process easier. Then, save everything in a folder. Schedule them to post later.
Do this five days a week. Soon, you’ll have a month’s worth of content ready to go. It’s steady. It’s simple. It helps you stay visible online while keeping your time for actual coaching.
You started coaching to help people grow. Not to live in your inbox. But somehow, the admin work creeps in. You spend hours sending reminders. Sorting through spreadsheets. Logging session. That’s energy you can spend serving clients. Or resting.
Consider outsourcing to get some of those tasks off your back. Bringing in a virtual assistant is a game-changer. They can manage scheduling. Handle client liaising and reminders. Tidy up your backend systems. You stay in charge, but you delegate the repetitive tasks to someone you trust.
It may feel strange to hand things off. But soon, you’ll see how freeing it is. You’ll have more time to prepare for sessions and meet with clients.
You can’t give your best as a coach if you’re buried in admin work. That’s why it’s so important to streamline your systems. Follow the tips above to help your operations run smoothly. Automate scheduling. Use tools to handle payments better. Make onboarding less of a toll for you.
Then, watch what happens. You’ll have more time. More focus. More energy for your clients. Because when the business side flows, the coaching side thrives.
A great first step is to automate your scheduling. Using a tool like Calendly or Acuity can immediately remove the time-consuming task of arranging sessions, freeing up mental space and time. It's a simple change with a big impact.
You can simplify your pricing by creating a few standard packages, for example, a 3-month plan and a 6-month plan. Each package should have a clear price and a list of what's included. This makes it easier for clients to choose and for you to sell your services confidently.
Not necessarily. Many modern payment platforms, or merchant accounts, are designed for small businesses and have reasonable fees. The time and stress you save by not having to chase invoices often make the small cost a worthwhile investment for your business.
Many CRM systems are built to be user-friendly. However, if you're not comfortable with new software, you can start with a simple, well-organised spreadsheet. The goal is to have one central place for all client information, so choose the tool that you'll actually use consistently.
You should consider outsourcing when you find that administrative tasks are consistently taking up time you'd rather spend on coaching or growing your business. If you feel bogged down by your inbox, scheduling, or invoicing, bringing in a virtual assistant, even for a few hours a week, can be a smart move.
