EP 348 - How to Build a Profitable Coaching Business in 2026: A Step by Step Guide
If you're a coach trying to build your business and you have no clients (or not enough of them), there's a good chance you're skipping one critical step. In this video, I'm walking you through the exact framework I use with my clients inside the Business Building Boutique so you can see where the gap is and what to do next.
If you're new to my channel, my name is Debbie Shadid. I'm a Business Growth and Life Coach and the founder of the Business Building Boutique. For over two decades, I've helped women learn how to become coaches, get clients, grow their businesses, and create meaningful income doing work they love.
This is the first episode in a new series. After this overview, I'll come back and take a deep dive into each step so you can fix the gaps one at a time. Save this video, take notes, and use it to figure out exactly what's been holding you back.
In this episode, we'll walk through:
Why your niche is the foundation of everything and what happens when you skip past it
How authentic branding becomes the curb appeal of your business (and why disconnection costs you sales)
The marketing message mistake that's quietly killing your conversions
Why social media is not step one and how to know when you're actually ready for it
How to create a signature offer and pricing that you actually believe in
The truth about content planning, business systems, and email list growth
Why marketing is the ATM of your business and how to do it on repeat without burning out
What authentic selling really sounds like (no arm-twisting, no scripts that make you cringe)
How planning and CEO mindset change everything about how clients see you
By the end of this episode, you'll know exactly which step you've skipped and what to do next. The coaches who build sustainable, profitable businesses are not the most talented. They're the ones who refused to skip steps.
Ready to start with Step One? Grab the Profitable Niche Blueprint, the exact process I walk my clients through to find a niche that pays: https://www.lifecoachbusinessbuildingschool.com/niche-course
Want to walk through every step with me? Join my free workshop here: https://debbieshadid.com/workshop
Connect with me, Debbie Shadid:
Website: https://www.debbieshadid.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debbieshadid/
Listen to the Podcast:
Life Coach Business Building School Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/life-coach-business-building-school-with-debbie-shadid/id1502118085
Subscribe for weekly episodes on building your coaching business, finding clients, and creating the life you actually want: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz6RS8kQGMLJqJrK9uKdjtg
If this video was helpful, share it with a coach who's been spinning her wheels trying to build her business. Subscribe and hit the bell so you don't miss the next episode where I take a deep dive into Step One: how to find a niche that actually pays.
Disclaimer: Some links above may be affiliate links. I only recommend products I personally use and love.
Tired of spinning in indecision about what to post, how to sell your coaching, or explain what you do? This is your moment!
Join me for a live edition of Fast Track + VIP coaching experiences where you'll get real-time feedback on your niche, offers, and marketing, plus the clarity and support you've been looking for.
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Let’s connect!
Website: https://www.debbieshadid.com
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Transcript
If you are a coach who's trying to build your business and you have no clients, this episode is for you. I'm gonna walk you through the 12 steps that I use with our clients. By the end of this episode, you're gonna know exactly what you are missing and you're gonna know what to do next. I've been at this for over two decades. I've helped thousands of women build profitable businesses. I did not invent these 12 steps, but what I did do is through my own experience with women in their business, in our local market, in my state, in this country, and then worldwide, what I did do is I figured out what they needed to do to get their business profitable and I mapped it out. I didn't read this in a book. This came from real experience. I took the problems that people had, I addressed them, and then I watched to make sure that it created profit for them. This is how I have created the profitable coach framework. I'm gonna share the whole process with you today. If you have not subscribed, you wanna do so right now. I'm gonna go through the 12 steps, but I'm also gonna come back in a series and address each one of the steps in a separate episode. I have worked with some of the most educated women, the most qualified women in the world, and they face the same problem as some coaches who are coaching from just their real-life experience. If you know who you are talking to, that's one thing. But if you're not clear about who you're talking to and if you're not talking in a way that they understand, your business is never gonna take off. You will be talking to no one. I know you've heard that before, but I want to impress upon you. Today, as I go through these steps, clarity is key. Let's think about weight loss. We can find weight loss solutions anywhere.- If you are talking about losing weight and you are not talking to a very specific problem, you might as well be talking to nobody. If you're not talking about their biggest problem, like lose weight for the last time, that's a habitual dieter. If you're not talking in a way that says, "Oh gosh, I think she's talking to me," you're talking to nobody. They can go to ChatGPT or to Claude and get any answer they want. So this is key to get clear on your messaging and how you market. So knowing the steps that I'm gonna share with you today is just one part, but I have to encourage you, you have to take the action to implement everything I'm talking to you about today, or it's not gonna be worth your time. Before I walk through this list, talk about AI, because AI got coaches really excited, and I'm excited about it too. Finally, coaches felt like they had a way to create content, the one thing they hated to do. Like, "I hate being on social media. I hate writing. How can I find a way to shortcut this?" AI was the answer.
But here's the deal: 2:48
AI only produces words. It says things that are not relatable. It cannot be thinking for you, and we have allowed AI to think for us. It cannot tell you what your niche is. It cannot help you discover why a particular niche should be your niche, what the deepest transformation is that only you can provide, and how you can connect with people. AI cannot help you build know, like, and trust because they don't know anything about you. It can give you a piece of content that sounds pretty generic with no typos, but that is not why we're using AI. So I'm not against it, but I wanna make sure that you use it as a tool, and until you understand what your core niche is, your core message is, and what the sequence is that you need to build your business in, you're never gonna get AI to work for you in the way that it needs to. Okay, here we go, step one, is your niche. This is the start of everything. It is the foundation of your entire business. If you do not get this right, everything else you do is not gonna work. This is who you help very specifically. This is what they struggle with, what they want. If you do not have this narrowed down and locked in, everything else that you put out is going to be very average. It will seem like you are talking to no one, and I know you've heard this over and over, but it is so true. You go on social media right now and start scrolling, you will see the posts that are so generic, it's like, what did they put this quote out here for? Because it doesn't really land with anyone. It's just content. You don't need to produce content. Your messaging, your posts, your marketing, the conversations you have, they need to speak to one person about one particular problem. AI, is telling coaches, " This is a great niche," and they know nothing about you. In fact, we know our friend ChatGPT loves to tell you how amazing your ideas are. Do not be misled by that. When it comes to your niche, you want to get this right. I talk to coaches who come to work with me, and they're like, "I've already got my niche figured out." And I'm like, "Okay, great." As soon as we start trying to apply the work into the next steps, that's when they discover, wait a minute, I don't actually know my niche. I don't actually really understand what their problems are. I need clarity around this. I'm gonna challenge you. You probably need clarity around your niche as well, so make sure you go deep on this because if you don't have clarity, your business is not getting off on the right foot. Okay, step number two, authentic branding. If you know your niche, then you can give your brand the face that it deserves. Your brand is not just a logo. It's how people feel about you when they see your content, when they visit your website, when they get on a call with you. There has to be this through line that connects all of those together. I like to talk about this as the curb appeal to your business. You guys know I talk about building a boutique-style business. This building out there, that is you online. So what kind of curb appeal do you have? You wanna make it feel like you, not some template that you got somewhere. Your brand should reflect exactly who you are. If your niche is not clear, your brand is not gonna be clear. They build on each other. If your brand does not resonate with you, you will become disconnected from your brand, and your clients will sense it, too. I had a call with somebody who just hired me, And she said when she got on the call, "Oh, my gosh, I realize that you are exactly who you are on YouTube. You're exactly who you are on your social media. I wasn't surprised when I saw you. When you started talking, you sounded exactly like you. I knew what to expect. She said, "I got on calls with other coaches who look nothing like their branding, nothing like the photos, nothing like anything they had presented online." That disconnection costs you sales. That connection with your brand not only makes you feel good about your business, but it actually creates trust, which then converts to clients. Step three, your marketing message. Your niche and your brand, they need words. Your marketing message is the language that brings both of those things to life. It is what you say on your website, in your emails, on social media, but it's what you say everywhere to potential clients. Get this piece right- Everything else that you write will flow from this one message. Inside the Business Building Boutique, in step three, we use this one step for every other piece of content that we write, for every conversation we have. This step, it ties all of everything that you have together. Let me tell you the biggest mistake people are making, and I'm gonna say AI again. Coaches are letting AI write their marketing message, and then they wonder why nothing converts. Here's what happens. AI writes your marketing message, write your social media posts, start writing emails for you, people get on a call with you, you don't sound anything like it. Guess what? That's a disconnection. That is why you have to be the one writing your message. AI can help you with typos and help you bring clarity. AI can ask you some good questions to help you understand how to get clear on it, but this is a critical piece. So that's step three. Your marketing message has got to be where people are not confused by what you're saying, where people feel like you really understand them. This is the first step to creating great connection and real trust. Step four, social media. I already know how you feel about social media, but let me just say, you're on it every single day. In fact, I know you met me through social media. This is a free marketing tool. It is not optional. If you notice, though, it's step four, not step one. Now, I know many of you guys are like, "I gotta get on social media." Do not get on social media until you know what your niche is, until you know what your brand is, and until you know how to talk about yourself in the right way. I want you to be the authority about what you're talking about. Your brand, your niche, and your message helps you show up as the authority. This is where coaches can start to get more comfortable on social media. When they know how to talk about their business, when they know who they're talking to, and they know the right way to talk about it, then it becomes so much easier. You can tell what is being created by AI and what is being created by you. When you pick up your phone and you have a real conversation to somebody In a reel on Instagram, they feel it. That's what I want for you. So social media is necessary. You don't have to be everywhere. You don't have to show your whole life. In fact, nobody cares what you ate for breakfast, you don't have to show those things. You have told yourself about how you have to expose your whole life on social media. That is not true. What you do have to be is relatable, authentic, and you have to be somebody that looks like they can trust you. All of that comes by you showing up as your brand with the same message, understanding your niche, and talking about it in a simple, relatable way, I have to tell you I even have some clients that I worked with in the past, pre-AI, that I now see are using AI in every single post they have. They're using AI-generated images that look terrible, let's be honest. If it doesn't look like you, don't use it. They're posting quotes that nobody cares about. Please take the time to create sincere content that speaks to somebody's true needs, that talks about their real pain points and how they are struggling, and then talk about the outcomes that you can provide. Step five, your signature offer and your pricing. I love to help our clients create a signature offer that showcases their exact skill set. You know who you help, you know your brand, you know your message. At this point, you're showing up on social media. Now people need to know what they're gonna buy from you. Your offer is the solution to the problem that your client came to you for. Your pricing is what makes your business work for you. Both of those need to be something that you genuinely believe in, because if not, you will not sell it. Your offer has to directly deliver what your marketing message promised. If there is a gap between those, people will not buy your offer. Your pricing has to be a price that feels in integrity with you, a price where you say, "That's a price that I know is right for me." Do not look to see what anyone else is pricing. Price in a way that fits for you. I'm gonna tell you, I had eight hundred consultation calls in the beginning of my business. Eight hundred, and I sold eighty clients out of eight hundred. Do you know what the problem was? I didn't love my price. If you don't have those things right, every call and conversation that you have, you will feel pushy and salesy and just not good about it. That's exactly what my problem was. I learned it the hard way, and so now I'm teaching you price in a way that feels right to you. Step six is all about content planning. Now, if you know your offer, and we know your message, we know your brand, we know your niche, all those things, now it's time to make this simple for you. How do you create your content in a way that is repeatable? Well, you figure out what your content categories are going to be. What will be the consistent thing that you talk about on repeat? And let me just say, you need to talk about things on repeat because number one, not everybody sees your stuff. Number two, we're all consuming hundreds of things a day, all through social media, in many different outlets. We have so much exposed to us all at one time. Think about how many TV stations there are. More than I can count, that's for sure. So with all of that content coming at us, we need to actually repeat content. So we wanna talk about the same core topics on repeat all the time. You will create content that is consistent, that people will know you from, because here's what you want to happen. I had a client who said, "I was working on something with email marketing, and I was struggling so bad, and then all of a sudden I was like, 'Wait a minute, Debbie. Debbie Shadid. Oh yeah, she's the one who teaches, tells, and shows you how to do this stuff.'" She only knew that because she had heard it from me over and over and over again. That is why you want to repeat what you are saying. If you use AI to tell you what your content should be, it will not be content that you can talk about forever. You're going to be marketing in your business until the end of time. This is not a problem if it's something that you know, if it's something that you love to talk about, and if it's not hard for you to talk about it. This is why I'll go back to your niche. Niching is important, and every other step needs to fit together. So if you don't know how to talk about your business, you won't do it. Confidence is created by having marketing in place, by taking action when you know that what you're talking about is the right thing. Step seven, business systems. Now, how many of you are like, "I need a step-by-step process. I need to know what technology to use. And by the way, I'm terrible at it"? I bet that's you. A lot of people over 50 are like, "I'm terrible at tech." Okay, we can make this simple. There is a way to have a professional-looking business. There's a way to do all the tools together for less than $100 a month. I will talk about this in depth in this upcoming episode. I'll go through all the systems that we use, that we teach, that are easiest for people to use in their business. You cannot grow your business if you are disorganized. It's only gonna go so far, and I can tell you from firsthand experience, eventually systems start to break down. If you do not know how to track your clients, if you don't know how to track your payments, if you don't have a way for people to get on your calendar, and so many other pieces, you're gonna not be able to have a business that is sustainable. You've gotta create a business that is easy for you. We are in business for ourselves to have freedom and have flexibility. That comes from having simple systems in place, simple systems that you can learn in a couple of hours and that will make your business and your life easier. I know so many women who have wasted so much time and so much money on software that they did not need, me included. I used to think that if I had the right software, I would get clients. Guess what? Clients do not come from software. Marketing is how you get clients. So you do not need any complicated software. Step eight, email list growth. There is money in your list. I want you to write that one down. There's money in your list. I started out in 2021, with a brand-new niche of only coaching coaches. I decided to take this email list that had thousands of people on it from my previous niche and just set it aside. I started from zero, and I decided to use this 12-step method, the 12 steps that I'm teaching you right now. I decided, you know what? I'm gonna test this with coaches. I'm gonna rebuild my business from zero, use these exact steps. I grew an email list from zero to 100 subscribers in six months' time, and I made $100,000. There is money in your list. That one thought kept me emailing people. It made it so that I followed up with people. I didn't care what they thought. It made it so that I would say every day, "What should I send in an email to people to help them understand how I can help them?" Your email list is the only asset that you own. Now, today, I'm gonna tell you what, everything is complicated because the algorithm is only showing certain things on social media. Emails are going to spam folders and trash. You have to have all of these. Email marketing is 100% necessary, and you've got to figure out how to use it in a way that makes sense. This is the way that you send your content. This is the way you send your freebie. This is the way that you connect people back to things like your YouTube channel. Email marketing is necessary. I use it through my workshops. I get people the Zoom links. I send them the reminders. All of that is done through email marketing, and that happens because I have grown an email list. Step nine, marketing. All the things marketing. I will tell you this is the biggest step because you have no business without marketing. Marketing is the ATM to your business. I'm gonna say that on repeat. I want you to hear it on repeat in your own mind. Marketing is the only path to clients. Marketing can be talking to your next-door neighbor in your front yard. We make this so hard. If you would start talking to people in your local market, you don't even need to know any technology, you don't need to be on social media, you can sell your coaching. Talking to people is the easiest thing to do. That's just one way to market your business that somehow we got online and we forgot to do that. Social media is the other piece we talked about. Email marketing, learning how to launch. That is just a sequence of emails that you send. Our Design Live Thrive Summit is the most incredible experience where you put all of this into practice. Everything I'm talking about in these 12 steps, it comes all together at the Design Live Thrive Summit where we teach our clients how to talk to their niche about their pain points, about the results that they can get. We help them set up a freebie and grow their email list and send the emails. We teach them how to market through email, through social media, on video, to actually get people to sign up for their workshops. We teach them how to send the reminders. Hey, the workshop is starting at this time. All of that, plus we help them craft a signature talk. We teach them how to present it, and then we help them set up a forever, an evergreen funnel afterwards. That is putting all of the marketing that we teach into practice. So you must be marketing on multiple platforms. This is the way that you grow a business. You must be doing it consistently. And let's be honest, we gotta think of a way to do it on repeat So that you are not working on your business seven days a week, 24 hours a day, so at some point, you have to create a repeatable process to reuse your marketing. I know people talk about repurposing content, but until somebody explains it to you, you can't figure out how to do it, so stick around. In an upcoming episode, I will talk about that as well. Step number 10, authentic selling. Nothing happens until you make a sale. I would dare say that you don't even have a business until you've collected money, right? You have a hobby until you collect money. That's actually what turns it into a business. You can have scripted conversations that a lot of people will teach you that will feel awful. Those are the things that feel like arm-twisting conversations. If you have the right niche, a brand that you love, a message that you connect with, if you've been talking to people on social media, if you have an offer you love, a price that you feel an integrity with, when you get to this authentic selling piece where you have this comfortable conversation, that's what I like to say, it will not feel like an arm-twisting conversation. It won't feel like you have to be pushy and make people buy it. You will love to just sit down and talk to people. Yes, there's some strategy involved in asking key questions. You want to help people see where the gap is and how you fill the gap. You wanna inspire people to take action today, not tomorrow, but today. All of that happens through having a conversation structured in a way that makes sense. But I just wanna encourage you, sales conversations don't have to feel bad. In fact, they can be so much fun. I love getting on the call with people, and honestly, it turns into a conversation where we discuss niche, and we talk about their goals and their dreams. And then if my work is right for them, then we have a comfortable conversation about how I can support them. Okay, step number 11 is planning for success. I have to tell you, you guys have heard the Bible verse, " Where there is no vision, the people perish." This is the same thing in your business. That is why this is a step in our roadmap. Step 11, planning for success. You have to have a plan for your business, for your life, for your content. You have to have a plan to reach your financial goals. You don't have to have this big, long, corporate structured plan. You don't have to have this business plan that somebody helps you write. I literally sit down with people, and we write a plan for an entire year in an hour or two. No kidding. We can go through all of it. So it's a plan that will help you live your best life because you need to have a schedule that you're working in your business. It will help you set aside time for vacations. Yeah, you set aside time. You create freedom by setting boundaries around your schedule, by marking your time off. You get to be taking vacations just like everyone else. You wanna have a plan for how you reach your goals, how your income's gonna come in, what your marketing's gonna look like. I'll tell you, you will have consistent marketing when you know where to market your business every single day. Every single week, you tap back into all the things we've talked about, your brand, your message, your content pillars, all the free ways that you market your business. You make a plan for what that's gonna look like, and you do it on repeat. Planning is how you create consistency. That is how all the marketing that you do will eventually compound, and you'll get this business that you love with a full client load. No kidding. That is how you grow a business. AI can build an impressive plan, but it will not be a plan that works for you. You have to create something that is something that is doable for you, that works with your values, with your skill set, and with the knowledge base that you have. Okay, step 12, it's time to be the CEO. Our coaches love this. When I say, "Look, you're not just a coach, you are the CEO of a coaching company," when they shift to that identity, All of a sudden, they show up differently. It's like, "Oh yeah, I do have a company, don't I?" I'm like, "Yes, you have a company." When you think about having a company, you're not thinking about how much should I charge? You're like, "I have to make money. I have bills to pay in my company." Companies make money, they look for profit, they figure out ways to create a sustainable business, and they do it on repeat. That is what the CEO does. The CEO makes a plan, executes the plan, and keeps the company going. they move with where the market's going, but they're not affected by what's happening with the economy. They're not changing their mind. They're in it for the long haul. Coaches who treat their business like a business, those are the ones who win. So that is it, you guys, 12 steps to building your coaching business. Now you know what those are. You've heard the sequence. One step builds on the other. Every one of those is connected. Now, I know you know what they are, but you've got to put those together. So you've understood how they're mapped out, but take the steps and do it. I bet you're gonna have to listen again to this, take some notes, see where the gaps are, and then put it into place. This is how you build a profitable business that you will love. If you have skipped any of these steps, I guarantee you, your business will not be sustainable, you eventually will burn out, and you're working harder than you need to, doing some things that honestly don't make sense, that probably are not getting you the results that you want. If you want to walk alongside me with these 12 steps, then explore the Business Building Boutique. Tell me in the comments what your biggest takeaway was. I cannot wait to hear from you what it is that you found valuable here. Again, make sure you subscribe. I will see you guys in upcoming episodes where I take a deep dive into every one of these 12 steps. These 12 steps, they work. I use it in my business. This is how I rebuilt my business. I retested in 2021, and look where I'm at now. I have an incredible business. I have helped hundreds and hundreds, even thousands of coaches build incredible businesses using this same process. So have a beautiful day, you guys. Implement those 12 steps, and I will see you in an upcoming episode where I talk about niche. Then I follow that with branding and all of the other steps. We'll talk to you soon. Have a beautiful day.
