From $0 to $1.47 Million in a Year... What I learned scaling a coaching business in 2022

Last year I was part of a 3 person team that built a company from zero to $1.47 million in revenue.

While working a fulltime job…

Here’s how we did it:

First, let's start with the backstory.

I have an entrepreneur friend (for privacy sake we will call Jerry).

Jerry build a very successful business in the Multi Level Marketing space, and had decided in 2021 that it was time to get into coaching to help others create the successful outcomes they desired in their lives.

Jerry is a creative type, great with people & enrollment. He also has over 200,000 legit followers on Instagram, a best selling book, a mansion & a very enticing lifestyle of adventure.

Despite all of this…. When we met, after 6 months of ‘running his business’ he had zero clients.

I had been running my coaching business for several years, and came on board as Head of Operations to help him out.

From my experience, for a business to be massively successful it needs 4 things:

1. A Phenomenal Product: solves a pain for it’s customer worth paying for

2. Great Marketing: entices people into desiring the product

3. Consistent Sales Process: Getting them from no idea who you are to paid customer consistently

4. Reach: Getting on the radar of enough humans for your marketing & sales to generate legit income for the business

Here’s how Jerry was stacking up before we joined forces:

Sales? Yes. This man is the best enroller I’ve ever met.

Reach? Yes. A massive audience on social media for which he is a trusted authority.

Phenomenal Product & Great Marketing? Not really. Sure, he achieved massive success. But his website was very unclear about what he offered. He did not have a well defined process for what he did. He was only selling 1:1 coaching for $10,000/month, which was WAY out of the price range for most people. His only other product was a $20 book. He had no tiered offer system for different price points.

Here’s what we did to get his business from $0 to $1.47 million in the first year of operations.

1. Understand his Unique Selling Proposition - what can he do better than anyone

We needed to get absolutely clear on what he can do better than everyone. He was trying to be every solution for every person… and as a result was nothing for no one.

We got clear by looking back over his journey in building his last business to over $70,000 in recurring monthly income - which he attributed to his ability to express himself so authentically that he developed into a natural leader with significant influence. Thus, his USP became helping creative professionals master their communication skills for optimal results in business, relationships & life. 

1. Create a tier of products and services at various price points

First we built out low ticket coaching programs on various topics (Entrepreneurship, Life Transformation, Relationships) that served as a ‘foot in the door’ for new audience members to get a taste of his work without massive risk. As digital courses, they scale, and require zero effort to manage once published life.

We then built a Mid Tier Coaching Program. We priced this at $8,000, and scaled to over 50 members in a few months. We did this effectively by packaging it with live events. These in person experiences created deep brand trust, a tight knit community & epic marketing content. Live experiences played to Jerry’s strengths of connecting emotionally to his audience. This drove massive staying power (low churn) and significant referrals into our program.

Now that we had successfully built out a system for bringing customers into our world, we built a high tier offering with exclusive access to experiences & material. These packages ranged from $10-40,000).

1. Built out a marketing machine

As we launched our first set of products, we built out the team of leaders with a strong track record of success in the following areas: Funnels, Copy, Social Media Content, Advertisements

We built out a marketing calendar of Instagram Lives & Webinars that aligned with each product launch to drive sales.

1. Implement Solid Operations

As we began finding success, we needed to implement strong Operations to keep the growing business aligned. We adopted product management software (Asana), built a year plan which included all product launches & marketing initiatives, and conducted consistent After Action Reviews following each launch to collect feedback & continue to iterate  

What are the biggest lessons I learned from this process?

A great product alone will not create success.

Awesome marketing alone will not create success.

Being a killer sales person alone will not create success.

Having an audience alone will not create success.

It’s only when you combine these 4 elements in lock step together that you truly achieve success in your business.