Ready Set Coach Podcast

What it Takes to Scale Your Coaching Business

• Emily Merrell and Lexie Smith • Season 2 • Episode 83

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This week’s episode focuses on what it takes to scale your coaching business. Em and Lex share their experiences scaling their coaching businesses and the different obstacles they encountered. They talk about the importance of delegation in your business, and what it means to put on your CEO hat. As they both look to further scaling, they discuss the mindset shifts needed to create more room for you as the business owner or coach to continue growing.


Here’s What You’ll Learn: 

  • What it takes to scale a coaching business
  • The importance of delegation when scaling
  • Different tips and tricks for delegating different aspects of your business
  • How to create more space for you as the boss to pay attention to growing the bottom line
  • Mindset shifts that come up, and are needed as you look to scale your coaching business
  • And more! 


Listener Links: 



Emily Merrell  

Oh, hi legs.


Lexie Smith  

Oh, is that oh, what the


Emily Merrell  

the Zoom recording thing like a new pop up showed up? It was on the top versus like covering your face. And so


Lexie Smith  

I don't know maybe you have like an updated version,


Emily Merrell  

maybe zoom is optimized. But Lexi I have to, I have to tell you it's it's our like formal virtual anniversary and it was our formal meet cute anniversary last month. But like, this week is our formal virtual anniversary.


Lexie Smith  

We How do you know that? What did we do? I


Emily Merrell  

started hosting virtual events.


Lexie Smith  

Then I came to them and you you did come to


Emily Merrell  

them. Okay, I think that's awesome to our relationship. And at some point you hosted events for for my company as well.


Lexie Smith  

Oh my god, how cute are we?


Emily Merrell  

I know, I know. We should find I love actually this could be a fun social media thing for us. So we should do like all of our first initial emails. Like the verb like


Lexie Smith  

our like girl flirting, like how can we be mutually beneficial to each other slash like this girl's cool slash you been let down that the PR bar wasn't an in person bar slash new entrepreneur Lexi like fresh, wide eyed, bushy tailed slash. Oh no. There's a global pandemic. What the hell is happening in the world? Also, disclaimer guys. I'm sick and I have a cough drop in my mouth. If I sound weird, or you you hear like my mouth, there's something in my mouth. There is something in my mouth. It's a cough drop.


Emily Merrell  

Lexi is now crafting a new brand of cough drops called Lexi coughs a lot.


Lexie Smith  

I mean, if you're on YouTube, you guys, here's one Ricola here's to Ricola three Licola four seven recall of more.


Emily Merrell  

That's amazing. I love it. Yeah, no, this episode is brought to you by recode recode. Now the spokesperson she is going to a Swiss ELP and she was yodeling in the middle of nowhere.


Lexie Smith  

I have the hair will just braid it. So I'm


Emily Merrell  

a great brainarm Did you know this about me? I think you knew this about me.


Lexie Smith  

Yes, I did it. I did.


Emily Merrell  

I braided your hair when you came to Denver in the nightclub that we went to


Lexie Smith  

as you sat in the corner Yes. Okay.


Emily Merrell  

Guys, my my benefits have been friends with me in high school or middle school where I was great at massage. I still am fun fact. And I was a great French braider still am. But those were like the qualifications that got me into the cool ish slumber parties because I was like, Can I braid your hair? Can I give you a massage? Will you be my friend? So


Lexie Smith  

that's instead of being out grinding on the dance floor with our husbands because it was a double date. They had to watch as we sat outside and Emily French braided my hair nightclub


Emily Merrell  

Nothing says 30s like a French braid and a nightclub squirrel and even more i i feel terrible about this Lexie but I know I made you wildly jealous this past week.


Lexie Smith  

To the FOMO was next level.


Emily Merrell  

I next level guys I gotta meet not only Cory, who is like our heart and soul quarry shout out to Cory just to meet her and to be picked up at the airport from by her was just such a such a treat. But I also got to meet Jodi Jodi that was the week before and then I got to meet Emily gara home yeah.


Lexie Smith  

Are Ready Set coach community leader. You know guys are mine. This Emily's relationship. It's like I've already accepted she's the favorite parent, right? Like there's the cool parent. And then there's the parent that I don't know, disciplines or whatever. Anyways, Emily's the favorite child. Or maybe that's the way she's the favorite. Everyone's going to love her. She's also the one who's going to show up. And then I'm going to be over here and I'm going to still have a role in their lives somehow.


Emily Merrell  

You know, you're you're basically talking about my relationship with my child. I dropped them off a daycare and he like points to the teacher and he's like, Where's daddy? I just am Mommy and I just dropped you off and you're already asking for daddy. So yeah,


Lexie Smith  

we are here we are. Not true. So um, I'm gonna squirrel our squirrel back to non scrolling. So okay, here we go. Guys. We we were talking for a good 20 minutes before hitting record about what we wanted to talk about. And generally we come up with a title or a core concept and If we didn't land on one, however, there were some shared themes that we kept bringing up. And these themes have come about for Emily and I over the last few weeks in our businesses. And they bring to light a few different phases of business and a few different phases and considerations that we're going to bring to you now. So I don't have the killer title right now, to segue, this transition. But welcome to this episode. Now, the Ready Set coach podcast. So okay, let me set the stage a little bit. I was on a call with a agency client of mine, who is ironically, launching a coaching brand. But there's a lot of context to that. But we'll skip that. He was talking about, we were kind of outlining we were PR refine him. And one of the things we were doing was branding, his methodology for Coaching for Business Coaching. He's very successful entrepreneur. And one thing he said was, what a lot of CEOs get wrong in business, what a lot of CEOs do. And I mean, this is a nine figure CEO, so he's talking about if you're trying to go from 1 million to 10 million, like what's the hang up, is that CEOs have a really hard time letting go of the day to day, what they need to do is get out of the day to day and be able to delegate and basically be okay. With not everything being perfect. Now, I felt super cold out in a good way. Because I this is me to a tee. Like I have a very hard time letting go. And my clients like Lexie, that you just I'm like, how do you overcome that he's like, you just have to if you want to scale, you need to get out of the day to day as a CEO. So I was voice noting, Emily, and I'll segue that segue this to you, Emily, and it brought up something that's been top of mind for you lately.


Emily Merrell  

Definitely. And I love I love that you felt called out to because I always feel called out and I love. I'm so good at helping other people delegate and get out of their own weeds and out of their own way. And actually a shout out to Rhys Evans. Years ago, I remember having a conversation when she was delegating. And she's has a multimillion dollar business now. And she's like, one of the things that helped me up level was thinking about, would Jeff Jeff Bezos be making a Canva graphic for Amazon and I was like, Oh, this feels so real. So delegating for me Lex has been quite the journey where I feel like I have, I have like an ebb and flow of delegation where it's either like I'm sending my child off to to boarding school, and I don't want to look at it in terms of delegation, or like, I'm a helicopter parent, and everything that they are feeding, dressing and serving is incorrect. And I'm not going to tell them why I'm just going to change it. So I think there have been moments I've lived in happy medium. But what I was sharing with wax when she voice noted me was so top of mind. So again, same wavelength sometimes lacks this feeling. What am I thinking right now? Was thinking just this aspect of like reassessing, and it's work, guys, we're wrapping up the first quarter of the year, and reassessing what is on my plate that still is, can and will be delegated and what I desire to be delegated for the quarter ahead. And this is a really important exercise for if you're like a party of one, a party of 21 Just looking at your plate and realizing like, oh crap, I am hogging the buffet and I am not sharing with others, even though I am paying for them to to eat here too. What is it with my metaphors today?


Lexie Smith  

I don't know not your best, but you usually nail them.


Emily Merrell  

Thank you. Sorry, guys, I haven't had my talk. Okay.


Lexie Smith  

So, you know, and I think actually, it is worth breaking down the stage of company and the size of company because I do think it varies because the reality is if you're a new coach, and you're just starting out, you might not have the luxury of an abundance of funds to help help onboard team and support to delegate. So I do think when you're when you're new business, depending on your circumstances, you do need to roll up your sleeves. And I think it's smart to roll up your sleeves and do everything. Because I think you should know how everything works in your business. However, at a point, there reaches a point where you need to learn to let go. And I that's especially hard in our line of work when the core product that we're selling is so attached to who we are as the coach. It's hard. It's hard to feel like we can outsource or delegate us, right at least that's something that I've really had. Yeah, you you're you're Brains having a lightweight, what do you think your


Emily Merrell  

brains firing? And I can't remember who this conversation was with. So if someone's listening that I had this conversation with, let me know. But someone was telling me they enrolled in a coaching program, because they were so in love with the social media that this person put out. Lo and behold, come to find that they hired and delegated someone to do the social media. And they felt a little betrayed. They're like, Whoa, these weren't your original thoughts or your ideas. So that ownership aspect, you're going back to lacks that feeling of like, well, I feel like I'm disingenuous if I don't write the social media, because what they're buying into is me. And what if they, again, they like the cover, but then they don't like what what it is that they're consuming? So yes, yes, I just wanted to reiterate, yes. And I also want to add to that, too, there's this aspect of delegation with a small business with a one person team, where you look at your funds, and you're, you're drowning and work you have so much to do, which is great. But maybe you're not at the font fund level where you can actually like justify delegating, and there is that internal dialogue that needs to be had, like, am I going to maybe go into a little bit of debt temporarily, so I can get out of this drowning feeling? So I can then I can scale? Because there's a chicken and an egg before change and growth happens?


Lexie Smith  

Yeah, 100%. One thing I can promise everyone listening, and I think, yeah, I think I'll put my foot on the ground here. There is no such thing as a multimillion dollar coach doing everything by themselves. Yeah. And if they want you to think about that, yeah,


Emily Merrell  

me, because


Lexie Smith  

I'm very there is no, I'm gonna put my stake in the ground, and I can't wait for you to prove me wrong. There is not a single multimillion dollar coach, who's doing it all themselves. So it really kind of depends what your ambitions are. And this goes, let me go back to that conversation I was having with this agency client. And he said, you know, this is a big difference between when someone passes the 6k, Mark, and then passes the million mark, and then goes to three, he said, even three to 10 is a massive difference. That's a huge leap in business. And so many things have to change, the difference being the CEO really needs to get out of that. And focus on core bottom line, needle movers and drivers. And so when we think about coaching, right, obviously, if you decide you're going to do high ticket one on one, you can't necessarily outsource literally the coaching element. But there may be things to Emily's point, like social media, where you need to come up with some happy mediums, you need to free up your your time more to the things that allow you to bring in more revenue. Yeah,


Emily Merrell  

and I think in that aspect to about you say you have a high ticket one on one, and you are selling a program at a at a really like a six figure price. Do you need someone to pre vet the people so you're not getting on every single potential sales call, or you delegate it to someone to create like a really sophisticated sales, sales funnel to bring them into your front door, but you're not the one necessarily hopping on like 20 calls back to back all day long, because your, your time is so valuable and so protected. So it's like hiring those outside people to be those gatekeepers to be the ones to judge or pre sell what working with you looks like.


Lexie Smith  

And I'm going to do a big call out for me here. If you want to scale and if you're anything like Type A like me and blur the line, sometimes with micromanagement and perfectionism, that is going to be a big hurdle, because you have to let go of perfectionism if you want to scale.


Emily Merrell  

So we decided that this title is called coaching therapy for Lexi. No, no, but I Lex I think that that, you know, especially for perfectionist and for people who are type A, you have to remember that your A B plus is better than most people's A plus pluses. And so to lean in to that B plus mentality and I in my journey with delegation, while it has not been perfect. One of and we've talked about this in past episodes previously, but one of the biggest mistakes that I would do when delegating was when my VA would hand me a graphic and there was a spelling error or there was something wrong with it, is I would change it right then in there. And I would like send it on to whoever I needed to send it to. When really what I was supposed to do is let her know what was wrong with it. Wait for it to be returned, approve it and then maybe have her send it but that waiting period lacks is like, what we're such fast mover and shakers. We want things done yesterday. And so when we do have to wait and we both have been guilty have been like bucket, I'm sorry, excuse me, screw it, we're gonna just do it, we're gonna we're gonna do the thing that I just asked you to do. But I realized you're in a shower. So like, I'm gonna do it. And the patience aspect of delegating is challenging.


Lexie Smith  

Yeah. 100%. And, you know, the reality is two, you could spend three months spinning someone up for them to quit. That's a reality. Yeah, I can't sugarcoat that, guys. Now, one thing you can do. And one thing we suggest to give you something a little bit tangible here, right, because we're talking about a lot of realities, that was therapeutic for me. So thanks for listening, there are things you can do to to help make the next hire in the next three months go a little smoother. And that is Systemising systematizing. And writing SOPs. So one thing I did, I recently hired a new PR assistant and coordinator. And the very first task that she had, was to create SOPs for everything I was training her on, with videos with everything I'm like, so as I teach you tasks, your task is to then create an SOP Bible, right? So that if you leave me and I told this to her, I'm like, I hope you don't. But if you leave me, I now can, hopefully, instead of taking three months to train someone, have two months, or at least feel like I can be a little more hands off.


Emily Merrell  

And how genius of you to have her do the task to because you've done this thing a million times. So having her recorded and documented in a beginner's mindset of like, oh, this is nuanced, you have to hold down this key in this key to get this thing versus you just doing it automatically and kind of in your sleep. So that's genius, delegating an SOP to a new hire. So then it's it's ready to rock and roll.


Lexie Smith  

Another thing I'll say, something that I've really tasked myself with, we often talk about delegating the things we don't like, what I don't think he's talked about enough, is delegating the things we do. Like, I freaking love creating graphics, I love and I'm fast at it. I'm updating my website. So for me, they bring me joy, and why would I pay someone else who's probably going to do lesser than I and take longer? To me I've never been able to, to get a higher SAT. And I'm really trying to shift my mindset to your point that you brought up earlier is Jeff Bezos making the Canva graphic just because he can and he likes it probably not. So if scaling from a revenue standpoint is something I want, if that becomes one of my goals, that I do need to let go and learn how to put a team in place and support that team to create things. So it's a mind it's on me that's on me. And that's


Emily Merrell  

that's such a like that so resonates with me to y'all, I host a ton of virtual events. And recently I had this moment of I love hosting them. But I also think I love I actually rewatched 10 Things I Hate About You so squirrel, like I like my Skechers. But I love my Prada backpack. And I love my product backpack, which happens to be coaching. And I love it. And I feel really charged by it. And I feel really like, I feel like that's where I shine. And I can really be the truest and highest version of self. And so it's this aspect that I love, but I like event hosting. And I like showing up and I like meeting new people. So it's creating that like happy balance of rather than me doing it all which I can. Recognizing that I can also craft in a role and an opportunity for someone to become an excellent event host. And to give them the gift of being in front of people, especially someone who loves it and is charged by it and is passionate about reaching out to event venues and crafting experiences. Where if you would ask me 10 years ago, would I ever see myself not doing that? I'd say like you're insane. And now I'm I want to kind of be a special occasion version at events. I don't want to be at every event my my life priorities have


Lexie Smith  

have shifted a bit. Yeah, it's it's when you talk about scaling, revenue and scaling a business. For a coach, there comes a point where you really do have to put on the CEO hat and being a CEO looks different than being a coach. It does. And so maybe that's even a conversation you need to have with yourself, right? You don't have to have aspirations to be a multimillion dollar coach. That does not need to be everyone's pie in the sky goal. You can be perfectly happy replacing your corporate salary. So Reality, I don't know, salad plus salary, let's use your salary, you know, making $75,000 a year that affords you and your partner a great, comfortable lifestyle and the city you live in. And that's great. There is nothing wrong with that at all. And if that's the case, then maybe you don't even need to be thinking about the conversations we're talking about. But if that revenue threshold, or if getting past or getting to that next big revenue jump is something that you're striving for, then these conversations we're having become real. Yeah, welcome to no repeat.


Emily Merrell  

So I think I think it's an energetic thing to to your point is just recognizing, like, are you happy with what you're at? Or do? Do you envision even more for yourself, and even what you had said about the CEO and the coach, I do know, some coaches are, who are coaches, and they show up in their content as coaches, but they are the CEO of their business, and they hire other coaches to do the coaching for their practice. So like, there's so many ways to envision your business, especially when it comes to coaching and what it is that you're offering. So but rather than, we don't want you to leave this episode, feeling like Oh, my God, I'm a failure. I'm not thinking big enough. We want to challenge you to look at your plate and see like, what can what can I give to someone else, and make money to create jobs for other people and think of it as an abundance thing? Like I truly believe that when you start thinking about your business, like a business, you're creating job prosperity, and economic change for your greater community,


Lexie Smith  

if you want to, but I also want to Devil's advocate that you don't have to if that doesn't light you up, there's nothing wrong with that for a long time. i The thought of having an employee was the last thing I wanted. And I think that's fine primary for that to be fine. Yeah. The question I think you guys can have sitting in the back your head is just because you can, should you? Can someone else do this better? Is this the best use of your time right now? Or can this be outsourced? Even to Emily's point, if it I want to be careful here and I understand everyone's financial situation is different. Okay, I'm being mindful of that. But if there is a way for you to right now, spend a little more to put your CEO hat on to allow you to focus on revenue generation activities a little bit more. Can you?


Emily Merrell  

Hmm, I feel like we need to play like what to music now like food with goosebumps. So with that lacks, do you want to give them any more homework? Or is that that's good enough homework, right there.


Lexie Smith  

It's good enough homework, I think, you know, to kind of let me circle this, this back the theme, really, of today's episode, and and it's been circulating and percolating and Emily and I's brains is what it really takes to scale. And what it really takes to get to that next level, from a revenue standpoint, and what that looks like and how that translates into the day to day business, and how can we get out of our own way? And and lovingly calling ourselves out a little bit more and reevaluating and auditing what we're doing day to day? And if that's really what us as CEOs should be doing. If we want to reach x revenue point, then we do we need to change each level of business just because you hit one mark, to get to the next mark. More changes required.


Emily Merrell  

Yeah, Lexie, thank you for therapy, I my insurance company will be paying you directly. Fantastic.


Emily Merrell  

And listeners, thank you so much for listening to our inner brain being dumped in front of you all, real time, in real time, when we want to hear from you is again, this is a two way conversation. So shoot us a note on Instagram or email us at Hello at ReadySet. Coach program.com Just with what your thoughts are and what you're feeling. And also I want to say if there are things that you want to learn about or hear about, let us know. This is this is our favorite thing in the entire world was when we get inspired by these real life interactions and conversations. So, but that we'll see you the next time on the race.


Lexie Smith  

My voice hurts. Okay, bye everyone.