Episode #116: If I Had to Start My Coaching Business Over From Scratch, Here’s Exactly What I’d Do
If my business disappeared tomorrow and I had to start over with no clients, no audience, no facility, and no existing brand, what would I do?
That question came from a listener who is currently in the early stages of building her coaching business. And it’s a good one, because there are about a hundred different things you could focus on when you’re starting out.
Content. Systems. Pricing. Software. Lead generation. Your website. Social media. Hiring. Scaling.
The problem is that trying to do all of them at once usually means you don’t make much progress on any of them.
So I wanted to approach this differently.
I’ve spent 16 years in the fitness industry and nearly a decade building an online coaching business. If everything I’ve built disappeared and I had to start again, I wouldn’t be guessing anymore. I’d have the benefit of knowing what mattered early, what could wait, and where I wasted time the first time around.
Here’s how I’d spend that first year.
Key Takeaways
1. Your first clients are probably closer than you think. I’d spend far more energy working my personal and local network than trying to become internet-famous.
2. Earn the right to scale. Get clients, deliver results, learn who you serve best, and build repeatable processes before piling on complexity.
3. Build the business in layers. The CRM, email marketing, lead magnets, delegation, and more advanced systems all matter. They just don’t all need to happen on day one.
Stop Trying to Go Viral
One of the biggest mistakes I see new coaches make is putting way too much weight on social media numbers.
They want followers. They want views. They want the one Reel that blows up.
But a million random views can be far less valuable than 10,000 views from people who are actually your ideal clients.
I recently had a video get around 47,000 views. Nothing astronomical. But it generated roughly 200 comments from people opting into a lead magnet, more than a thousand saves, and hundreds of shares.
That is a successful piece of content.
Those people were far more aligned with the people we actually help. They engaged. They saved it. They shared it. Many of them gave us contact information.
That matters a hell of a lot more to a business than being watched by a million people who will never hire you.
When you’re new, your content should be much simpler anyway.
Get your face on camera. Talk about what you know. Share what you’re doing. Show your training. Show what you eat. Talk about your clients. Share wins, testimonials and transformations.
Your Instagram Story can basically become a daily vlog of you building the business and serving people.
Post frequently and get the reps.
You don't need a production team and cinematic B-roll when you barely have clients. You need people to know who you are, what you know, who you help, and that you actually give a shit about getting people results.
Start With the People Around You
If I woke up tomorrow with zero audience, my first clients would come from my local network.
I’d go through my contacts. I’d talk to friends. Family. Old coworkers. People at local gyms. Chiropractors. Coffee shops. Community groups. Youth sports programs. Local Facebook groups.
I’d ask businesses if I could come in and run workshops.
I’d look for every opportunity I could find to shake somebody’s hand and become known as the fitness and nutrition guy in my community.
Because there is a huge difference between posting something online and crossing your fingers versus physically walking into a business, introducing yourself, and creating a relationship.
Your local network also gives you something incredibly valuable early in your career: experience.
You get to coach different people, solve different problems, collect testimonials and learn who you genuinely enjoy working with.
That last piece becomes incredibly important later.
Your Local Niche and Online Niche Aren’t the Same
I would stay fairly broad locally.
If there are 100 people in my immediate network and I’m the only fitness and nutrition professional they know, I already have differentiation. I don't necessarily need to become the nutrition coach for 37-year-old moms who do CrossFit and have thyroid issues.
Online is different.
There are a million coaches competing for attention.
As I started working with more people, I’d pay attention to which clients I loved coaching and where I consistently produced great results. Then my online content would begin narrowing toward that person.
That means I might still coach 20 different types of people locally while creating online content as though one very specific person is standing behind the camera.
That clarity makes your content stronger because you know exactly who you're talking to.
I Wouldn't Charge Premium Prices Immediately
This is another area where I think new coaches sometimes get bad advice.
I wouldn't come out of the gate charging the same amount as somebody with years of experience, hundreds of client results, polished systems, and an established brand.
I'd create a beta-style offer.
Maybe I take my first five clients at a reduced rate. I make it very clear that they’re getting that rate because they’re part of the initial group, and I grandfather them into it.
Then I coach the hell out of them.
I learn.
I collect feedback.
I improve the service.
I get results.
Then the price starts increasing.
By the time you reach your higher price point, you should have enough client experience and proof behind you that you've earned the ability to charge it.
Build Systems, But Understand What a System Actually Is
People hear “systems” and immediately think they need six software subscriptions, complicated automations and a massive CRM.
A system can simply be a repeatable process.
If you discover a good way to onboard clients and you know you’re going to repeat it, document it.
If you develop a consistent process for check-ins, document it.
If you find a content workflow that works, document it.
Every time you find yourself thinking, “This worked. I’m going to do this again,” there should eventually be a process around it.
I made the mistake early on of having a lot of things living inside my own head. That works until another person needs to do the job.
Then suddenly you're trying to explain a process that makes perfect sense to you and absolutely no sense to anybody else.
Start documenting early.
That doesn't mean automating everything immediately. The earliest automations I'd care about would be practical things tied to the coaching experience: onboarding, questionnaires, milestones, booking calls and other processes where automation makes the client experience more reliable.
Quarter 1: Get Clients and Get Reps
My first three months would be extremely simple.
Warm outreach would be the priority.
I'd work through my personal network and constantly plant seeds throughout my community.
I'd buy my domain and put up a basic website. It doesn't need to be beautiful. It needs to exist, explain what I do, and start giving Google something to index.
Then I'd chip away at it every week.
Improve the copy. Improve the SEO. Add useful information.
I'd post short-form content every day and distribute it across platforms instead of obsessing over one.
I'd bring in those first beta clients at a lower rate.
And I'd get coaching software that helps me deliver a great service.
That's enough.
By the end of Q1, I want clients. I want experience. I want feedback. I want proof that I can solve real problems for real people.
That entire quarter is about building the foundation through action.
Quarter 2: Start Building Infrastructure
Now I have clients coming in and I've had a few months to understand the business.
This is when I'd introduce a CRM.
And I'd keep its job pretty simple at first: track leads and support client automations.
If somebody applies, I want to know where they came from. Did they book? Did they buy? What did they consume? How long were they in my pipeline?
I don't want to wait until there are hundreds of people floating around before I decide maybe I should start tracking this stuff.
I'd also automate the pieces of onboarding that don't need me personally doing them.
Payment. Contracts. App downloads. Onboarding instructions.
Manual delivery creates unnecessary opportunities for things to get missed.
This is also where my content would start becoming more focused because I now have enough coaching experience to recognize patterns in the people I work with best.
Quarter 3: Turn What You're Learning Into Assets
By Q3, I've spent six months solving problems.
That gives me material.
If clients keep asking me how to eat while traveling, I'm going to turn my answer into a guide.
If another problem keeps coming up, maybe that becomes a checklist.
Those become lead magnets.
Then I can create content around those problems and give people something useful in exchange for their contact information.
This is when I'd intentionally begin growing my email list.
Your social audience is valuable, but you don't control the platform. An email list gives you another direct connection to the people who have raised their hand and said they want to hear from you.
By this point, the business is slowly developing an ecosystem.
Content creates attention.
Useful resources capture leads.
The CRM tracks them.
Coaching creates results.
Those results give me better content and better resources.
And the cycle keeps getting stronger.
Quarter 4: Start Emailing and Buy Back Your Time
Once I've actually built an email list, I'm going to use it.
I'd probably start with three emails per week.
And I'd heavily favor value.
Teach people something. Help them solve problems. Give them a reason to keep opening your emails.
The coaching application can always be available. People know you coach. They don't need you screaming at them to buy something every 48 hours.
I'd also use email to send people toward the other valuable things I'm producing: podcasts, YouTube videos, blogs, case studies and short-form content.
Over time, you become familiar. When that person finally decides they need help, you're already the coach they think of.
Then I'd make my first hire.
For me, that would be an assistant.
Calendar management. Scheduling. Organizing files. Pulling testimonials. Responding to reviews. Administrative tasks.
Anything that does not require me specifically should start coming off my plate so I can spend more time coaching, selling, creating and growing the business.
Then I'd Look Back at the Entire Year
At the end of the year, I wouldn't immediately jump into year two without evaluating what happened.
I'd look at everything.
Where did my best clients come from?
Which content worked?
Which platforms produced nothing?
Where did I waste time?
What did clients love?
What processes kept breaking?
What am I great at?
What do I hate doing?
What should be automated?
What should be delegated?
What needs a better system?
Then I'd build year two around those answers.
Because after 365 days, I finally have something incredibly valuable that I didn't have on day one: data from my own business.
That's when you can make smarter decisions about where to double down and where to pull back. Cody's roadmap ends with exactly that kind of full-business assessment—time, productivity, client results, systems, offers, sales and the platforms producing results—before deciding where to focus next.
The Part Nobody Wants to Hear
There's one more thing I would bring with me if I had to start over.
Patience.
I've been in this industry for 16 years. I've been running an online coaching business for almost nine.
What I have today wasn't built in 12 months.
And I worked constantly to build it.
During the early years, if I wasn't coaching clients, I was building the website. I was creating content. Writing programs. Studying. Working on the business.
There will eventually be more freedom. There will be vacations and space in the calendar and a team that can take things off your plate.
But expecting the lifestyle of an established entrepreneur while you're still building a brand-new business is going to make the beginning unnecessarily frustrating.
Give yourself time.
Get clients. Coach them extremely well. Become known in your community. Build your reputation. Document what works. Create content. Collect proof. Build the infrastructure as you actually need it.
And keep stacking those things for a long time.
That's how I'd start over.
And if I woke up Monday morning and everything I've built was gone, that's exactly where I'd begin.