EP 301 - The Best Small Business for Women Over 50: Why Coaching Is the Perfect Choice
If you’re a woman over 50 wanting to start a small business, and wondering what the best small business for women over 50 is - this episode is for you! In this episode, Debbie explains exactly why a coaching business is often the best fit for women over 50 looking to start a business.
If you want flexibility, low startup costs, meaningful work, and the ability to earn from home, coaching is one of the simplest and most rewarding businesses to begin. In this episode, you will learn how easy it is to start a coaching business with the skills you already have, why you do not need certification or a business plan, how quickly you can start making money, and what tools make the process simple. Debbie also shares the realistic startup costs, how to get your first paid clients without a website, and what makes coaching so fulfilling for women who want freedom and purpose at this stage of life.
Whether you want more control over your time, a business you can run from home, or a career that lets you help people every day, this episode will show you why coaching is the best small business for women over 50 right now.
Inside the episodeyou’ll learn:
Why a coaching business is the best small business for women over 50 who want flexibility, freedom, and meaningful work
How to start a coaching business quickly with minimal startup costs, simple tools, and no certification required
How fast you can make money as a new coach and what you actually need to begin coaching today
Tools for coaches I reference in this episode:
- Flodesk (email marketing): https://flodesk.com/c/DEBBIESHADID
- Descript (video editor): https://get.descript.com/cj4n2vzke4vu
- Squarespace (website builder): https://www.squarespace.com/
- Canva (graphic + brand creation)
- Calendly (calendar software for scheduling sessions)
Ready to grow your coaching business in 2026? Register for our upcoming free LIVE workshop here: https://coaching.debbieshadid.com/workshop
🎙️ Listen to the podcast: Life Coach Business Building School: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/life-coach-business-building-school-with-debbie-shadid/id1502118085
Don’t forget to subscribe for weekly episodes on coaching business strategy for women over 50, tech tools for coaches, and simple business growth strategies that really work: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz6RS8kQGMLJqJrK9uKdjtg
#DebbieShadid #LifeCoachBusinessBuildingSchool #CoachesOver50 #WomenCoachesOver50
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and forward this to a coach who is building and growing their coaching business. CLICK HERE TO LEAVE A REVIEW
Don’t forget to connect with me on social media: Instagram | Facebook
Transcript
Are you looking to start a small business? I wanna tell you why starting a coaching business might be the perfect choice for you. I have a brand new client who said that she was searching on YouTube for what small business is the best business to start, and one of my videos came up, she happens to be a woman over 50, and I was talking about why this is such a great choice for a woman over 50. So maybe you feel stuck, you're unsure about how to move forward. I'm gonna talk about all of that in this episode, and I'm not talking about finding another job. I know you wanna start your own business because you're looking to have flexibility. You're looking to have control over your finances over your time, and actually maybe even have some location freedom. All of that is possible with a coaching business. It also is a business that can provide you with some deep satisfaction, which I know if you are a woman over 50, you are looking to have something at this point in your life that's meaningful. You wanna make a difference, and you wanna make sure that your work really matters. I'm gonna bet that one of the roadblocks that you have encountered as you've thought about starting a business is the startup cost. There is actually a pretty big startup cost to most every business. Except for a coaching business, that is the part that makes this so inviting. To be a coach, you need no business plan. You need no SBA loan. You don't need any monthly rental fees like on your boutique. If you had a store or you don't need an office, you don't even need anything like that. You need a space even in your home, and I would encourage you to make it an inspiring space. You need a laptop and just a few pieces of software. Can you imagine how easy that would be to start a business with just that? All of that is possible. So let's talk about that path to making an impact and what it could look like for you. The biggest barrier is only going to be a simple shift in your mindset. There really is power in starting a coaching business. In this video, I'm gonna tell you about what it takes to start a coaching business. I'm gonna talk about whether you're qualified to start a coaching business and talk about how you can make it profitable. In such a short amount of time, honestly, much quicker than you think. So stay with me if we have not met. I'm Debbie Shaddid.. I've helped thousands of coaches not only build, but grow profitable coaching businesses. So in the next few minutes, I'm gonna help you. undestand what it would take to be a coach. That not only makes a difference, but also makes a career out of it. So to be a coach, you do not have to be qualified with a certification. That's the beautiful part. You can actually start a coaching business with just your life experience. In fact, that's probably the best thing with your career experience or with anything you've had going on in your life. Maybe you've even had a personal transformation that you could build a coaching business around. Yes. In some cases, certification is necessary. Not in all cases. In fact, in hardly any cases, is certification really a requirement? There is actually no governing law or body that governs anything in the United States. Now, maybe in other countries that's necessary, but if you're in the US There are no government regulations for what a coaching business actually needs to have. So what great news for you. You can start a business with just the experience that you have today. Let's talk about. Financing. What does it take to start a coaching business and how fast can you make money in a coaching business? This is the mind blowing part. you don't even need a website. Now. I teach people how to build websites. I help you create a beautiful personal brand. I love to have an organized business and a business that's really set up with the right foundation, and most of the women I work with who are over 50 also want to do that. But here's the deal, you don't actually need any of that. You could go out today and tell somebody that you could help 'em with weight loss or with a relationship, or with their online dating profiles or with their Excel spreadsheet, and you could get paid to do that. It really is that simple. You can go without anything else. All you need to know is how to take a payment and how to get 'em either on your calendar or meet 'em at a coffee shop. Now, most of you guys want something more than that, but it is that possible. We actually teach our clients in their first week of working with us how they could actually sell their coaching before they even have a niche really solidified, and that is by doing niche research. We give 'em a process for doing some research because you do need to know how to talk about your business. But through that research process, you can make offers to help people. That's literally what coaching is. So you could sell your coaching in the very first week of your business. If you do some research, but again, you can do it before then by just meeting somebody telling what you do and offering to help 'em. The startup costs, as I already mentioned, are incredibly low. You do need a good laptop, you need some internet, and I recommend that you have decent internet in your house, especially if you have other people using it. You don't wanna have internet that. Kind of wonky because you guys know if you're on a Zoom session with somebody that doesn't have good internet, it does break up and sometimes get stuck. So do make sure you have good internet connection, but then all you need is a laptop. That really is it. When we talk about the software that you need for your business. We need scheduling software. You need a paid Zoom account. You need to have, a basic website. At some point in your business, you need to have your online calendar so you can schedule appointments in a more professional way. But I wanna remind you again, all of this can be done without that. You actually could use your Google Calendar online. use a paper calendar and send somebody a text message reminder that they have an appointment with you. You could actually use something like Google Meet, which is free. You don't have to use Zoom, although what we recommend really are the best tools to get started. You also don't need any physical inventory and hear me on this. You also don't need a course. Do not create a course before you have a client. You don't need any of that. In fact, you will actually learn how to create the best course once you work with clients, because I know you think you know what your course should have in it. But until you coach a bunch of people, you won't actually really know what everybody else needs. You know what you need, but let's figure out what everybody else that you're gonna coach may also need. So pretty cool. How much money can you make as a coach? Well, it's unlimited I always tell people it's gonna take you a little bit of time to build your business. We've all heard stories about those people who make a bunch of money really fast. That could be your story. Most of the women I work with, they take it slow. They're building their business foundation. They wanna get things set up. They wanna have a beautiful brand. They wanna know how to talk about their coaching, any smart and savvy way. And so they're not in this rush. To like get it done. I always talk about building a business for a lifetime, so they're happy to build that foundation One time. I talk about being in the project phase of your business, just as if you were going to build out your boutique. If you build a dress shop your boutique, you're gonna have to paint the walls and get furniture in there and order the inventory, wait for all of that stuff to get set up so there's some build out time. It really is the same with your coaching business. You might spend just a few weeks to get everything in place so that when you do start your coaching business, you can feel confident that. The little bit of tech that you need is set up that you know how to use it. Again, you know how to use Canva. That's another tool that you're gonna want to learn how to use so that you can create your social media graphics in a professional way. Email marketing, we recommend Flodesk. That's another tool that's very easy to use. Very cost effective. You're gonna wanna know how to email people from a professional platform. And then the video editing tool that I always recommend is called Descript. That's another tool that you're gonna wanna know how to use once you get started. All of those things you can learn how to use in no time and. All of that costs about a hundred dollars a month. The whole list of the items that I've already talked about, about a hundred dollars a month. So you could actually build a six figure business off of that list of tech a hundred dollars a month. How amazing would that be? I also wanna talk about the demand. When we think about all the businesses that you could start in the world. There is a big demand for coaching, and based on all of the research that I have done, the demand globally is growing so fast, not just in the US but everywhere. There's been a 60% increase in demand for coaching since 2019. 60%. This is one of the fastest growing sectors of individual businesses or companies. and There is a massive return on investment. One study found that companies experienced an average return on investment that's called ROI seven times their initial investment. And I have to say, I think it's far more than that because again, your initial investment is a computer that you already have, an office space that you have in your house. And About a hundred dollars a month of software. Now, yes, you could hire a coach to help you. I'd love to be considered for that role. You could also hire somebody to help you with your website, which is not very much either. You could add on a few pieces of extra things that will make it really nice to work, which is a web camera, an external microphone that I'm using, and I'm also using an external extra light in my office. Those are all things that you can add on later. Yeah, even if your return on investment was seven times, and I'm gonna bet it's double that with coaching, or maybe even triple that, think how fun it would be to start a business with that small of investment and have clients that love to work with you because they get great results. In fact, 96% of individuals or companies who hire a coach, you know what they say, they would do it again. This creates a sustainable business for you because people come back, they come back and they get more help, and they get more help, and they also refer you. The next thing I wanna talk about is flexibility in your schedule. Even if you already work full-time, I can tell you that it is very easy to build a side hustle. With just a few hours a week, you can actually create a coaching business. And I have a client who did this. In fact, my very first private client, she actually built her coaching business in just a few weeks, and she only had two hours a week to coach and two hours a week to build her business. She got to. Six figures in nine months, you guys. So it is very possible. She worked full time, she had kids, all kinds of other things. But if you're committed to doing that, and if you have a good niche and she did, you can do something like that. You can also work a business the way you want. We've had clients over the years do all kinds of things. Recently we had a client who said, I don't wanna work in the summer. She said, look, I'm retired. I love to garden, I like to travel. I'm not gonna work in the summer. Which is perfectly fine. Now, I do recommend that you continue to market even if you're not coaching over the summer months or whatever that looks like for you. But here's the deal, once you learn how to market your business, everything can be pre-scheduled or repurposed during the times that you're maybe out of the country or you're traveling or whatever it might be, and you definitely can work from any location we've heard that. I don't recommend that you work from the beach. it's not a super professional environment, but you can definitely work from a hotel room, from an Airbnb. Probably a coffee shop is not the best choice either because of privacy purposes, but you have so much flexibility. if you've been around very long, you know I'm a grandmother to an 18 month old and a 3-year-old, and I've actually worked from their house as I was taking care of them during nap time. So it is possible to do whatever you need to do. My preference is to work in my office Because I can control the environment better. It's a nicer environment for our clients, but anywhere you wanna go, a traditional job cannot provide that. And I know now if you have been working in that traditional job and for a few years, you got the taste of working from home. Most of you have had to go back to the office, and you are craving the flexibility that working from home creates. So a coaching business puts you back in the driver's seat of you getting to work. From home the way you want to, so your entire business can be flexible. You can earn as much money as you want. You can work from where you want. You can do something that is so meaningful. You can change the world one person at a time. I love to think about the ripple effect that coaching creates. that's my challenge for you. If you are someone who is looking to start your own business, I want you to consider a coaching business. The impact that you can make is far beyond what you are gonna ever be able to imagine. There is so much satisfaction that comes from doing this work and the marketing. Once you learn how to do it, it's pretty darn easy. You can actually reach the world through social media. Through YouTube, through a podcast. Imagine what is possible for you if you learn how to do these things. You can do all of that without spending money on paid ads. If you had a local business, I can promise you that you would be spending money on ads. So there is so, so much opportunity you guys, thank you so much for being here. I hope that you consider coaching as the career choice that you wanna make, not just for this year. For every year and beyond.'cause again, I say you are building this business one time, a business for a lifetime. you guys go have an amazing week, consider building a coaching business. Cannot wait to hear what you're up to. If you are just getting started, I wanna encourage you to comment the word Canva, or click the link in the show notes, or actually in the comment section on YouTube, wherever you are. Watch my Canva training. I actually teach you how to use Canva for your coaching business. I will show you how to create a professional brand for your coaching business in 38 minutes. I'm not kidding. Everything you need to know about Canva, plus. I'm gonna give to you with 30 days of social media graphics. Let me know in the comments what you think. I would love to know what kind of coaching business you are inspired to build. Tell me what questions you have. Tell me what's coming up for you. One last thing I wanna mention. The biggest obstacle that you're gonna have is your mindset. I started out by talking about that today, that your mindset is the only roadblock you're gonna face. You have to be able to coach yourself in any business, but particularly in this business, you have to get over that imposter syndrome of, can I coach anyone? If you have a niche that you know and you have life experience in, if you have career experience in or training, or if it's just been your passion and you have already taken courses, read books, listened to podcasts, watch videos, I can promise you, you actually are. Qualified to coach nearly anyone on almost anything. What I always tell people is, if you get stuck, you can always just listen. People want to be heard. You can ask questions like, Hmm, tell me more. Huh, that's interesting. Why do you think that there are very easy ways to navigate conversation now? Let me just give you a disclaimer. I do not teach you how to coach. I teach you how to get clients for your coaching business, but watching your mindset is gonna be the key thing that you need to do as you grow your business. You're going to be telling yourself it's not working fast enough, the marketing isn't working, and I'm gonna remind you one last time before I go. You could actually get clients for your coaching business in one week. I don't know any other business where you could become profitable faster than that. Okay, go have an amazing week. I can't wait to see what you're gonna do. Let me know in the comments what you're up to and what you need support on, What lesson you would like to learn next from me, and I will be here to support you. All right. Let's do it. You guys. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
