Is a Business Coach Worth It for Online Fitness Coaches? An Honest Answer

A business coach is worth it for an online fitness coach when you're willing to do the work, you can afford it without putting yourself in a hole, and the coach has actually built the kind of business you want in your niche. It isn't worth it if you're hoping someone else will do the work for you, or if the program is generic advice you could find for free. The right one saves you years. The wrong one is an expensive lesson.

Full disclosure before you read any further: I run one. The Blueprint is a business coaching mentorship for online fitness coaches, so I'm not neutral. I've also been on the other side of it. I spent more than $140K on business mentors over four years while building my own coaching business, and some of that money was the best I've ever spent and some of it I'd love back. So this is my honest take, and you can weigh it knowing who wrote it.

What does a business coach for fitness coaches actually do?

A good one does three things.

1. Finds your real bottleneck. A business only grows as fast as its weakest link. For an online fitness coach that's almost always one of three things: not enough leads, not enough of those leads becoming clients, or not being able to deliver well to the clients you have. Most people guess wrong about which one it is.
2. Gives you a proven way to fix it. Offers, pricing, content, DMs, sales calls, retention. Things that have already worked for people in your position.
3. Holds you accountable to doing it. Knowing what to do and doing it every week are two very different things.

Knowing where to tap is the expensive part. There's an old story about a mechanic who fixes a broken factory machine with one tap of a hammer and charges $10,000. One dollar for the tap, $9,999 for knowing where to tap. A good business coach is paid for knowing where to tap.

When is a business coach worth it?

In my experience it's worth it when most of these are true:

• You'll actually do the work. The coach gives you the plan. You still post the content, send the messages and take the calls.
• You've got a clear goal. "Make more money" is vague. "Go from $5K to $10K a month without working more hours" is something a coach can build a plan around.
• You can afford it without it causing you real financial stress. Pressure makes you worse at sales, because people can feel desperation.
• The coach has done it in your industry. Online fitness coaching has its own quirks: check-ins, client results, transformation content, churn. Someone who's built a fitness coaching business knows them firsthand.
• You've tried to figure it out alone and you're stuck. Some people get a long way on YouTube and free content. When you've plateaued and can't see why, an outside view is most useful.

Kasey is a good example. Kasey was stuck at $10K to $12K a month, and more leads wasn't the fix. The first month in The Blueprint was a $20K month, and later came a $49.3K month. Deb went from 5 clients to 60. Results vary and depend on the work you put in, but those are the kinds of jumps that happen when the right problem gets fixed.

When isn't it worth it?

Be honest with yourself about these:

• You want someone to do it for you. A coach isn't an agency. If you won't post, message people or take calls, no program will fix that.
• You'd need to borrow money you can't pay back. Don't put yourself in a position where one bad month breaks you.
• You haven't decided you're serious yet. If you're still deciding whether you even want to coach online, start with free content first and get a few clients on your own.
• The program is generic. If it's the same course sold to dentists, real estate agents and fitness coaches, you'll spend half your time translating it to your business.
• You'd be buying hope instead of a plan. If you can't explain what you'll do differently in the first month, wait.

What should you ask on a business coach's sales call?

Every decent business coach will have a call with you before you join. Use it. These are the questions I'd want answered:

1. Who will actually be coaching me, and how often? The person on the ads isn't always the person you'll speak to. Find out who answers your questions and how quickly.
2. Have you built an online fitness coaching business yourself? Ask what it did and how they built it.
3. Can you show me results from people at my stage? A coach whose clients all started at $20K a month may not know how to get you from zero. Ask for testimonials from people who started where you are.
4. Can I speak to a current client? A good program will happily let you.
5. What exactly do I get? Calls, a portal, scripts, feedback on your content and sales calls, a community. Get the specifics.
6. What do you expect from me each week? If they can't tell you, there probably isn't a plan.
7. What are the contract terms and the guarantee? How long is it, what happens if you want to leave, and what does the guarantee require from you.
8. What do you think my bottleneck is? A good coach will start working it out on the call. A bad one will tell you their program fixes everything.

Watch out for income guarantees with no conditions, pressure to decide before you've had your questions answered, and anyone who can't show you clients who started where you are.

How do you choose between business coaches?

Look for one clear plan from someone who's done it. Amy had been with a few mentors before joining The Blueprint and said the thing missing was clarity, because there were too many voices at once. Amy has since scaled to £49K a month. Too many voices is a real problem with some programs, especially big ones where you never speak to the same person twice.

There's a separate comparison of the best business coaches for online fitness coaches if you want to see the options side by side. Watch a few hours of anyone's free content before you book a call with them. If their free stuff helps you, the paid stuff probably will too. Mine is all on YouTube.

Common questions

If you want to ask me or my team any of the questions above, book a call and grill us.