What does it really take to build a coaching business that replaces your salary… and eventually goes far beyond it?

This episode is for you if you’re building your coaching business and wondering whether you’re moving fast enough, earning enough or doing enough.

Jo shares her actual income journey from £0 to building a £200K+ coaching business, including the years when very little seemed to be happening. Jo wants to give you a much more realistic picture of how long it can take to build a sustainable coaching business, because comparing your first year with someone else’s fifth can make you feel like you’re failing when you may actually be making brilliant progress.

In this episode:

00:00 – The Coaching Income Reality

02:30 – How My Business Started

04:20 – £0 to My First £25K

06:00 – What Changed My Growth

08:00 – A Realistic Income Timeline

12:20 – Building From Financial Stability

15:10 – What Speeds Up Your Growth

18:40 – Business or Hobby?

“The coaches who will succeed are definitely not more talented than you. They’re not smarter than you. They just kept going.” - Jo Lott

Your next step: work out the financial baseline you genuinely need from your business, then set yourself a good target and a bigger target. Knowing your numbers gives you something real to build towards.

And if you take one thing from this episode, let it be this: give your business enough time for all the work you’re doing now to compound. Keep learning, keep marketing and keep going.

Useful Links

CEO Scorecard Quiz

Learn about The Business of Coaching programme

Signature Solution Course

Download the Free Digital version of Coaches' Planner (NEW edition 2026)

Free Essential AI Toolkit – 2 Must-Have Prompts for Coaches

How to secure more coaching clients' free training

Download the 12 ways to get clients now

Connect with Jo on LinkedIn

Rate and Review the Podcast

If you found this episode of Women in the Coaching Arena helpful, please do rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

If you’re kind enough to leave a review, please do let Jo know so she can say thank you. You can always reach her at: [email protected]

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I think there's a massive gap between what the coaching industry

2

tells you about how quickly you can

replace your income and the reality.

3

Honestly, it's quite dangerous because

people can quit their job thinking that

4

they're gonna be on 100K in six months,

and then get in all sorts of extra stress.

5

If we have these crazy expectations,

we often think we're failing

6

even when we're doing quite well.

7

I had this with a client recently who's

just in year two of her business, and

8

she had made something like £70,000 in

one year from her coaching business.

9

That's amazing.

10

Yet she didn't know it was amazing.

11

She thought she was failing.

12

She thought it should be higher.

13

So that's what we'll talk

about in today's episode.

14

Hi, welcome back to Women

in the Coaching Arena.

15

I am Jo Lott.

16

Today I'm gonna share my actual coaching

income timeline, not a vague, "It

17

took a while," but the real numbers as

much as I can remember them, because

18

I think you deserve to see what it

actually looks like on the journey to a

19

successful six-figure coaching business.

20

Let's talk about the usual income

timeline from qualified to paid clients.

21

You will often see ads that say,

"Make six figures in your first

22

year of your coaching business."

23

You may see people posting screenshots

of their Stripe dashboard showing

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£10,000 months, and you will see

coaches who have been in business

25

for six months telling you that

they've cracked the code to success.

26

And some of that might be true.

27

I'm not saying that people are

lying, but most of the time they

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are the outlier, not the norm.

29

And what we often don't hear is

what they already had in place

30

prior to starting that business.

31

Did they already have really

great relationships with people?

32

Were they already

well-known in their field?

33

Did they have a partner who was

covering the mortgage and the bills

34

while they built up their business?

35

Context matters.

36

It's almost always missing

from those kind of posts.

37

A realistic timeline for most coaches,

and I've worked with over 200 coaches

38

now, so this is a lot of data to

draw on, is that it takes two to

39

three years to build a sustainable

coaching business that consistently

40

replaces a professional income.

41

I know that that's not

sexy, but it is honest.

42

So let's talk about my actual timeline.

43

When I left my job working in HR to

train as a coach, I took on three

44

part-time jobs on the side because

I was far too worried about being

45

unemployed that I thought I needed some

income coming in, and I did, 'cause

46

I needed to clearly pay the mortgage.

47

But it just shows you that I didn't

just quit and think I could have

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coaching to cover my mortgage.

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I took on a HR contract role.

50

I took on a clerking role at the

local school for 10 pounds an hour.

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I did another admin job at a coach

training organization for also around 10

52

or 15 pounds an hour, which was obviously

my big turning point because then I did

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that admin work in exchange for paying

the 4,000 or 5,000 pounds for my ILM level

54

seven in executive coaching and mentoring.

55

That qualification took me around nine

or 10 months of working to pay off.

56

Looking back now, I should have just

paid the money and freed up my time.

57

Little did I know.

58

At the same time as this, I had a

one-year-old and a three-year-old, and

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just two days of childcare per week.

60

And when I say days, I mean

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it's not really a day at all.

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So I was juggling three part-time jobs,

two tiny children, training as a coach,

63

and trying to build my business And I

honestly do look back and think, "My

64

goodness, how did I ever do that?"

65

But that's exactly how I know when

people say that they haven't got the

66

time to build their coaching business,

that actually you can make the time.

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Somehow I made the time.

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So you can do amazing things if you are

committed and you really want to do them.

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First six months after leaving

my job was zero coaching income.

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Nothing at all.

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I was training, I was working those

three jobs and building my business

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from scratch, posting on LinkedIn.

73

Nothing was happening.

74

Then I moved into my first

full year in business.

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So I essentially left my previous

job just before the summer, so that

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first six months nothing happened.

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My first proper year in business, I did

manage to match my previous part-time

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salary, which felt enormous at the time.

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So I think that was around £25,000

for that first year, which was

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my previous part-time salary,

'cause I had these young kids.

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So that was pretty insane, in all

honesty, that I managed to do that.

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I know it doesn't sound like big

bucks, but what I know from working

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with hundreds of coaches is that that

is actually really good to get that

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sort of money in part-time hours in

your first proper year of business.

85

Okay, so year two was a bit higher.

86

I'm wishing I could

remember the exact figures.

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I maybe…

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Did I double it?

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I was trying to double my previous income.

90

I might have doubled it at that point.

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Year three, I definitely didn't

double it, so I think maybe

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year two I doubled that 25K.

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Year three I got a tiny bit more,

and it felt really good, but I

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was also really scared of the

VAT threshold, so that's 90,000.

95

So I didn't really want to

double it, because I was nervous

96

to go over the VAT threshold.

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By year four, I realized that I

just needed to go over the VAT

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threshold, and there was nothing

I could do, and eventually, you

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know, I would have to put my prices

up by 20% to incorporate the VAT.

100

So it was probably the last two

years, I would say, of my five

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or six-year business journey.

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I never know whether to count when I

was training and when I had no clients

103

as part of my business journey, but

I would probably say it's probably

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five years since paying clients.

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But things really took off in the last

two to three years, maybe two years, since

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I launched the podcast, because I really

built a good, deep workflow around it.

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So I record the podcast, it becomes an

SEO blog which attracts traffic on Google.

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I then make an email out of it, a social

post out of it, and then everything flows

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from this one piece of deep content.

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And suddenly I had a deep marketing

ecosystem which builds trust and really

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converts super well without me having to

do so much extra work to build that trust.

112

Last year, my business turned over

more than 200,000 pounds, so I'm a

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multi six-figure business owner as of

last year, which felt really strange.

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I think I was about 10,000

pounds over the 200K mark, and

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this year should be even better.

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But honestly, sales are easy now

because I have five years of backup.

117

I've been running my

program nearly five years.

118

I have 40-plus case studies I have

three years plus of weekly podcasting,

119

and so I don't need to sell anymore.

120

People buy my services without

really having to go through that,

121

but that is because your marketing

is doing the heavy lifting.

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So this is why I love marketing.

123

So never underestimate how powerful it is

to market your business deeply, because

124

it saves a lot of hard work down the line.

125

But it did take years, and a system,

and a lot of consistency and learning.

126

So here's what I would say the

average journey might look like.

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Maybe month one to three, I would be

aiming for your first paying clients.

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Sometimes you might get

one at a super low rate.

129

The goal isn't always

full income straightaway.

130

It's just proof that real humans

will pay you for coaching.

131

That is massive.

132

Don't skip past that important milestone.

133

Celebrate it properly.

134

Hopefully, you may have had that in

your first three to four months of

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business, maybe sooner, maybe later.

136

Maybe month four to six, you are

starting to get more inquiries.

137

Maybe you're getting more visible.

138

People are starting to find you,

or people you've warmed up earlier

139

maybe start to come back to you.

140

This is probably still quite

ambitious, because in this first

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six months, you're often behind the

scenes building a website, nurture

142

sequence, email list, LinkedIn profile.

143

So everybody's timeline is

different, but just as a rough idea.

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Okay, let's move on to month six to 12.

145

You know what you're doing now.

146

You are starting to build

much more authority.

147

You're starting to trust yourself a

bit more to be you in your content.

148

You might start to approach organizations

or get some real money coming in.

149

Maybe now you are raising your

prices a little bit and starting

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to get referrals from anybody

you have worked with previously.

151

Month 12 to 24, if you are incredibly

lucky, maybe you are matching or

152

exceeding your previous income.

153

Depends obviously what that was,

and your audience may be growing,

154

your reputation is building, and

maybe you have a system that works.

155

Again, this is top end, in all honesty.

156

This is if you have had a lot

of support, you've done a lot of

157

learnings, you've probably had a

business coach, and you've really shown

158

up big time to build your business.

159

So this is the kind of rosy picture,

and even though it doesn't seem very

160

rosy compared to what most business

coaches are showing you online.

161

'Cause for the majority of

coaches, it takes longer if you

162

hadn't got a network previously.

163

It can take a long time for people

to really know you online and trust

164

you enough to come and work with you.

165

One of my coaches in my program this

week realized she earned 80% of her

166

previous corporate salary at the moment.

167

That was between her own coaching clients.

168

She also has associate work, and

she also took on a contract as well.

169

I'm trying to remember what sort of

contract, but it wasn't coaching,

170

but it was kind of similar work So

you can build up your former income,

171

but often it's a mix of coaching

and a few other things as well.

172

I saw an article from one of my former

clients, Louise, this week, who shared

173

in the article that she earned 9,000

pounds in her first year of business.

174

She was obviously wanting to match her

previous income, which was a six-figure

175

job, and she now said, I think she's been

going about three, four years now, but in

176

the article she said she was earning multi

high five figures aiming for 100K now.

177

So that was roughly three s- three or

so years ago, I suppose, she worked

178

with me in the business of coaching.

179

So it takes time, but that

trajectory is real and good.

180

But just a quick note, if you are in

the UK, I think 100K is like the worst

181

income you could ever target for, because

after you get to 90K, you have to put

182

your prices up by 20% to cover that.

183

So unless you are selling to

organizations, I would either stay

184

just below the 90K or I would be trying

to get well past it to 120K, because

185

your sales, if you are selling to

individuals, will slow down when you

186

have to put your prices up by 20%.

187

So it's just a really tricky time,

which is why I avoided it for so long,

188

but then I aimed for the 120 to know

that I could cover any people that

189

weren't signing up because my prices

were suddenly 20% more expensive.

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So do celebrate every milestone,

not just those big ones.

191

Celebrate your first inquiry,

your first paying client,

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your first 1,000 pound month.

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Every tiny step of the way,

just give yourself that credit.

194

Don't wait until you reach your previous

income to celebrate, because I honestly

195

don't think you will ever get there unless

you celebrate all of these small wins,

196

because the key to business is keeping

going long enough to actually get there.

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So here's what I want you to know.

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If you are in a full-time

job, don't quit, not yet.

199

Build your coaching business alongside

it, unless you genuinely don't need the

200

money and can pay your bills without.

201

Yes, you will be tired.

202

Yes, you're gonna be working evenings,

weekends, every single moment you

203

can, but you're gonna be building

from stability, not desperation.

204

And that is what changes how you show up.

205

If you can go part-time in your job and

make this transition slow, even better.

206

This is how I did it, because I

genuinely needed to pay my bills.

207

We didn't have enough from my husband's

job to cover the mortgage and everything,

208

so I was just a bit more risk-averse.

209

But I have had lots of other clients

who have just quit and gone all in

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on their business, and I do sometimes

think- Doing that makes you make

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it work because it has to work.

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So it just depends, doesn't it?

213

You have to find your own way depending

on your own personal circumstances.

214

If you have already quit your job

and you're needing the income, then

215

associate coaching can really help.

216

That might be with big companies like

Esra, BetterUp, Genius Within, although

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in all honesty, the last time I checked,

most of those were full, so it might

218

be looking for smaller organizations

that are looking for associate coaches.

219

So the benefit of associate coaching

is that you get clients given to you

220

without you having to do the marketing.

221

Yes, that means at a lot lower rate

because they will be taking the premium

222

rate because they're doing the hard

job of marketing to get those clients.

223

But it really is a nice way of

getting some money in, practicing

224

your coaching, and just having

some small bit of stability.

225

I was really lucky to get associate

coaching roles when I started my business

226

with two small providers, and it was

just so nice to have occasional calls

227

book in my calendar without me kind of

doing the hard slog to get those clients.

228

But like I say, the market has

got busier, so those associate

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opportunities are harder to find now.

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But if you can find them, it's a

lovely way to combine that work

231

with your coaching practice.

232

So I don't want this episode to end

in a depressing way because while the

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timeline is, for most people, longer

than we would like, there are things

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that you can genuinely do to speed it up.

235

I'm sure if you've listened to this

before, it will be no surprise to

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hear that getting clear on your

niche is usually the top way.

237

Every month you spend trying

to coach everyone is a month

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wasted in your business.

239

All of the effort that's gone into

your marketing is usually wasted

240

for most coaches I've seen that

are trying to serve everyone.

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And I honestly think if you can't

commit to your ideal client, then

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why should your client commit to you?

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So there is so many

reasons why niching helps.

244

So this is why I've always invested

in business coaches, mentors, like

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so many right from the start of my

business, and I'm always still in

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programs now learning more and more.

247

Because it's not just about getting

a podcast out there, it's actually

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being good at podcasting and then

thinking about how can you get people

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to actually listen to your podcast.

250

There is so much more involved

that we don't realize.

251

So my best advice is commit to

being an absolute expert at your

252

business, not just the coaching side.

253

That deep marketing is where

the magic happens, but that

254

does take time and skill.

255

Finally, I've just touched on this

a little bit, but invest in support.

256

I know I'm biased here because I run

a program, but honestly, I would not

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be here in my business right now if

I hadn't invested in endless business

258

coaches, coaches, support, help, whatever.

259

You need to invest to be able

to reap the rewards back.

260

And all of the time you spend going

round in circles often means that

261

you're gonna end up at a desperate point

where you just need to go get a job.

262

Whereas use that time wisely, learn

everything you need to learn, get the

263

help to really fast-track that time,

and you will have far more likely

264

success of actually building a business.

265

Finally, be willing to

do the messy middle.

266

This is the bit where your offer

isn't quite landing, your website

267

isn't great, maybe your niche isn't

perfect, your content feels a bit

268

clunky, you're learning as you go.

269

And most people just think, "Ah, this

is just so frustrating," and they

270

quit in this messy middle Because

maybe you're comparing your first

271

month to somebody's five years in.

272

Don't do that.

273

I saw a client do exactly that this week

and say, "I just want to be where you are.

274

I don't know how you're doing it.

275

How do you manage to do all this stuff?"

276

And she was so frustrated, and the problem

is she's one month in to her business.

277

I've practiced so many more times

than she's practiced now, so it's

278

just not a fair comparison that she's

doing there for herself, because I was

279

exactly where she was one month in.

280

In fact, I was a lot worse off than

where she was one month in, because

281

she's already got a niche, she's

got an offer, she's booked five

282

market research calls all within

her first month of her business.

283

As you know, if you've listened

to this episode or other episodes,

284

I spent a lot longer than that

faffing around before anything

285

really was going on in my business.

286

And just keep showing up consistently.

287

People are watching, even if

they're not ready to buy yet.

288

Here is the question that every

new coach needs to ask themselves.

289

Let's have the honest conversation

here, which is, are you building a

290

business or are you building a hobby?

291

Both are absolutely fine.

292

If you want a few coaching clients

on the side and a bit of extra

293

income, that's absolutely fine.

294

But if you do want a business, I

would suggest making a decision

295

that this will be a business, and

an actual money-generating business.

296

Otherwise, it really

isn't a business at all.

297

If you do want a business,

that means investing your

298

time and energy in marketing.

299

It means having uncomfortable

conversations about money, showing up

300

on the days when you don't feel like

it, just like you would've showed up in

301

your job when you didn't feel like it.

302

And it means being patient, properly

patient, not I'll give it three

303

months patient, and then if it

doesn't work by then, I will give up.

304

Because I have had people before that

have worked with me with that attitude

305

of, "This is my last ditch attempt.

306

If it doesn't work by three

months' time, I'm quitting."

307

And I always think, you might as well

quit now, because with that attitude, it's

308

highly unlikely to work for you, because

you're already planning for the failure.

309

You're already planning

to go back to your job.

310

And whilst I know practically

sometimes we need to do those things-

311

I still think mindset-wise, it's not

a strong foundation to build from.

312

The coaches who will succeed are

definitely not more talented than you.

313

They're not smarter than you.

314

They just kept going.

315

So here's what you can do this week.

316

Write out your actual financial picture.

317

Think about what you need to

earn and how long you've got.

318

Like, have you got savings?

319

What's the baseline?

320

What would be enough for you?

321

So I know when I started my business,

I worked out how much I was earning

322

in London, then I took off my travel

and took off the extra childcare that

323

I wouldn't be paying anymore, and I

literally just got down to essentially

324

the exact same, which was a lot lower

than that salary because I took off all

325

of those travel and different things, to

try and make it feel achievable for me.

326

So just give yourself that absolute

baseline, then go for a good target,

327

and then go for an even better

target, and see where you get to.

328

If you want a clearer picture

on exactly what stage you are at

329

in your coaching business, then

do take my CEO scorecard quiz.

330

You will be assessed across nine areas of

your business in less than four minutes,

331

and you will get a personalized result on

what stage of business you are at right

332

now and where you should focus next.

333

You will find the link in the

description or the show notes.

334

If this was helpful, please do share

this with a coach who needs to hear

335

this honest timeline, because I do think

there is not enough honesty out there,

336

especially with regards to the money.

337

I hope this was helpful, and like I

always say, trust yourself, believe

338

in yourself, and be the wise gardener

who keeps on watering the seeds.