Over the last while, I've been noticing a pattern that breaks my heart a little.
It looks like this:
Once upon a time...
A new coach invests in their training. They're excited, they're capable, and they have something genuinely valuable to offer. Then before they've coached more than a handful of people, they disappear down a rabbit hole that has very little to do with coaching.
- They build a website.
- Then rebuild it.
- They buy tools they don't yet need.
- They learn funnels.
- They follow marketing advice from people who have never run a coaching practice in their lives.
- They pick a niche — not because they know their work yet, but because someone told them they had to.
- They start to feel like they're failing, even though they've barely started.
And underneath all of it is a financial pressure that nobody warned them about honestly — because the people selling coaching business advice have a vested interest in making it sound easier and faster than it is.
The distorted picture
Here's something I think deserves to be said plainly: a lot of new coaches have been sold a distorted picture of what it takes to build a financially stable coaching practice.
Not by accident. By marketers who understand marketing but don't understand coaching — who apply the same principles they'd use to sell any product or service to a profession that is fundamentally relational, trust-based, and slow to build.
They promise quick returns. They sell systems before coaches have anything to systematise. They teach tactics before principles. And when reality doesn't match the promise — and it won't, not quickly — coaches feel like they've made a misstep. Like the investment they made in their training was a mistake. Like they need to force a return before they've had time to actually become good at what they do.
That's a really difficult place from which to build something beautiful.
The expensive website that says nothing
I've met more coaches than I can count who have spent north of $5,000 on a website that looks stunning and says absolutely nothing. Not because the designer failed them. But because the coach didn't yet know their client, their work, or the connection point between the two — and no amount of beautiful design can manufacture that clarity.
You can't outsource knowing yourself as a coach. And yet that's exactly what the "build it and they will come" approach asks coaches to attempt.
The website isn't the problem. The timing is. A beautiful website built before a coach knows what they're actually doing is just expensive decoration.
The niche spiral
Then comes the niche conversation. Pick a narrow niche. Solve one specific problem for one specific person. Make it simple. Make it searchable.
And for some coaches, at some stages, this is useful advice.
But for many new coaches, niching too early sends them in entirely the wrong direction. They end up in one of two places: working with clients who will pay them to solve a specific problem, but doing work that doesn't excite them — acting more like a consultant than a coach. Or they get so caught up in the business-building that they pivot into business coaching, without having successfully built their own business first.
Neither of these is the beautiful coaching practice they imagined.
What actually builds a coaching practice
Here's what I've observed after over 20 years:
Most coaching practices — the sustainable ones, the ones coaches are still running a decade later — are built primarily through referrals and reputation. Not funnels. Not ad campaigns. Not perfectly optimised websites.
They're built through coaching well. Through clients who feel genuinely understood. Through conversations that linger. Through someone saying "you should speak to her" without needing to explain why.
That kind of reputation doesn't come from a marketing strategy. It forms through consistency, through staying close to the work, and through actually becoming a very good coach.
Everything else — the website, the tools, the systems, the content — is only useful once it solves a real problem you actually have. Not a problem someone told you that you should have.
So if you're a new coach reading this, here's what you actually need...
- You need a clear client agreement.
- A way to take payment.
- A private space to meet people.
- And actual coaching skill.
Start there.
Coach people. Get better at coaching. Let the rest follow the work, rather than leading it.
The business will reflect the coaching.
It always does.
Asking for referrals
(the conversation most coaches avoid)
Referrals don't just happen. Well, sometimes they do — but you can also create the conditions for them, and most coaches don't because it feels uncomfortable to ask.
Here's what I've found works. You don't ask for referrals in the abstract.
You make it specific and you make it easy.
At a natural moment near the end of a coaching engagement — when a client has just expressed that something shifted, or when you're wrapping up a series of sessions — you can say something like:
"I'm really glad this has been useful. I work primarily through referrals, so if you know someone who might benefit from this kind of conversation, I'd love an introduction."
That's it. No pressure. No follow-up script. Just a simple, honest ask from a place of genuine confidence in your work.
The coaches who ask rarely find it awkward for long. The coaches who never ask often wonder why their practice isn't growing, despite doing good work.
The graphic below is something I share with coaches when we talk about where to put their energy.
Notice where direct contact and referral building sit on the scale vs impact spectrum — high impact, lower scale. That's not a bug.
For most coaching practices, especially early on, it's exactly the right place to be putting your energy.
