5 Simple Ways to Automate Your Coaching Business and Boost Your Revenue

If you’re a coach, consultant, or client-centered business owner feeling overwhelmed and burned out and craving more balance in your life, this post is for you.

The idea for this post came from a Get Leads & Clients coaching call. One of my clients mentioned she felt hung over from all the work she’s doing in her business, building her funnel, staying in touch with clients, managing her business, etc.

When I first went full-time in my business, I thought I’d have all the time in the world to do everything I wanted. I had been juggling a full-time demanding job, a busy family of 5, and starting a business from scratch. I was so unbalanced it wasn’t even funny.

The hard truth was that going full-time in my business meant I didn’t have the income from my job as a cushion to float me if I had a bad month. So I ended up trapped in the cliche “hamster wheel” everyone talks about. If I stopped running, my income would stop too. There was no end to the hustle.

Being out of balance is inescapable from time to time when you’re in business for yourself. However, being out of balance all the time is not sustainable. All work and no play leads to health and relationship consequences none of us want.

While I was focusing on growing my bottom line, my bottom was growing as well. 🙁 I gained over 80 pounds after starting my business. I also ended up with worsening asthma and two herniated disks. Other business owners torch their relationships, miss out on memories with their families, and lose friends because of the demands of their businesses.

The problem is trying to do it all yourself without automation or help.

• Get visible on social – (ALL the socials because they say omnichannel is essential – right?)
• Write emails – nurture your list
• Publish blogs – don’t forget to SEO them – (learn about SEO)
• Create a course
• Write a book
• Design a lead magnet
• Host a webinar, masterclass, and workshop
• Build a podcast
• Grow your Youtube Channel
• Create short-form video content for TikTok, YouYube, and IG.
• Get those FB ads running – (learn about FB ads)
• Build your funnel – find a platform, learn about funnels, build it, get stuck on tech…
• Generate consistent leads
• Get them to book discovery calls – do discovery calls
• Send invoices
• Balance your books
• Don’t forget about taxes
• Manage your inbox
• Onboard your new clients
• Serve your clients
• Deliver what they’re paying you for
• Hire a VA – train your VA – fire your VA, and hire a better one…

OMG – it’s exhausting. No wonder many of us start Googling things like adrenal fatigue and buying courses that promise to make our businesses more successful with less effort.

I know this is not what I dreamed of when I thought about starting my business. I know you didn’t either.

Something’s gotta give…

If you’re at this breaking point and even things that used to feel like fun feel like they are too much work.

Or if you’re feeling tired to your bones and the thought of giving up has crossed your mind lately.

Let me introduce you to 5 simple, time-saving automations for coaches and consultants that you can set up in a weekend (or less) to get your life back and boost your revenue!

5 Ways to Automate Your Coaching Business:

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#1: Automate Your Appointment Scheduling

• Email 1: You: “Great, when are you available?”
• Email 2: Client: “Do you have any openings for Tuesday?”
• Email 3: You: “Does 1:00 in the afternoon work?”
• Email 4: Client: “Is that 1:00 your time zone or mine? I’m in US Eastern.”
• Email 5: You: “1:00 pm Central, which is 2:00 pm Eastern. Does that work?”

Stop. Stop. Stop!

If you still need to set up an automated appointment scheduler for your business, that should be the very first thing you do. You may not pass Go or collect $200 until your scheduler is set up.

Online schedulers make it easy for people to find a time on your calendar that works for them in their own time zone. They can book without ever having to exchange a single email. This will save you time and help you get your life back!

Set up blocks of time that you’re available each week. Sync it to your Google Calendar, iCal, or Outlook calendar so you won’t be double booked if you have another appointment. Remember to sync it to your Zoom account so it will automatically generate a zoom link and send it to your clients. Your appointment scheduler will also send appointment reminders via email and text to increase your show-up rate on your calls.

The online scheduler I recommend is Calendly. It’s super easy to set up and free for one appointment type. You’ll want to bump up to a paid level if you need multiple appointment types. I recommend the Pro plan. It w ill allow you to have as many appointment types as you need and automated workflows. With the Pro plan, you can redirect your leads to another page after booking. We recommend this for our clients to help them increase their show-up rates in their appointment funnels. At the time of writing, Calendly is only $12 per month.

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#2: Automate Your Client Onboarding

Systems that automate client onboarding are like the crock-pots of a coaching business. Once you set them up, they will do their thing in the background while you live!

There’s a lot to do when onboarding a new client. Contracts need to be signed, invoices paid, and resources delivered. Client onboarding automation will make this process a streamlined and welcoming experience, so your new client is excited about working with you and knows what will happen and when.

Look for a system that will allow you to set up packages or proposals and send contracts, invoices, intake questionnaires, welcome packets, testimonial requests, etc.

There are several popular platforms out there that you can try. I’ve used Dubsado in the past and really liked it. 

I’m currently using Paperbell, which works very well for me. It has fewer bells and whistles than Dubsado. Paperbell is built especially for coaches looking for streamlined onboarding. I’m finding it easier to use for my business than Dubsado. Paperbell also has a built-in appointment scheduler that will eliminate the need for your Calendly account.

As I write this post, you can start using Paperbell for free and only pay when you get your first client. Then the payment is $570 per year or $57 per month.

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#3: Automate Your Payment Processing:

Raise your hand if you feel icky when asking for money. If that’s you, do some mindset work around your self-worth! This is a common problem among heart-centered business owners (especially women). You’re worth getting paid and deserve to be paid well for the value you provide to others!

To make it getting paid easier, automate your payment processing! It will make it easier on your clients and minimize the number of times you have to put yourself in the awkward place of asking someone to pay up.

Plus, if you’re offering payment plans or subscription payments, the last thing any of us wants to do is remember to send out invoices and payment reminders or chase down clients who haven’t paid on time.

That’s why effective payment processing automation is one of the core systems I recommend you set up.

Using a client onboarding program like Paperbell, you can integrate your contracts and invoices into one seamless process. As soon as a client signs their contract, they’ll see the invoice and be able to pay you.

Be sure to connect Paperbell (or whatever system you use) to a payment processor, like Stripe or PayPal, ahead of time and celebrate when those deposits start to roll in.

Plus, if a client’s card is expired or declined, you can set the system up to automatically retry the card again and send the client a reminder email asking them to please take care of their payment.

Or do you want to use your website to collect payments? If so, you can automatically lock people out of your member’s area or courses if they are delinquent on their payments. (If you want help building a website that allows you to have a subscription-based membership, schedule a clarity call with me!)

If you’re not using a platform like Paperbell, you can still set up subscription payments with Stripe and PayPal, or you can set up automatic invoices within your Xero or Quickbooks bookkeeping software.

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#4: Automate Your Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing

Sometimes I feel like a broken record when talking about funnels, specifically appointment funnels. Still, they effectively save you time, so I have to bring them up! 

Lead generation automation and follow-up are critical activities on every business owner’s to-do list. Setting up systems to handle these tasks will help you get more sales with less effort and time.

With an automated appointment funnel, you won’t have to continue to spend your limited time on tasks like manually following up with clients. Plus, your leads will get the best experience possible with your carefully curated messaging so that they’re ready to buy by the time you get on a call with them. 

I did a whole series on appointment funnels I’ll link to below. Plus, I have a freebie for you if you want to see the Appointment Funnel Blueprint I use for my business and our clients. 

• Appointment Funnels 101: How to Get Way More Sales Calls and Grow Your Business with Ease
• Appointment Funnel Challenges: How to Break Through Them and Launch Your Funnel ASAP
• 5 Easy Ways to Find Time to Build Your Funnel Even When You’re Already Overbooked

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#5: Automate Your Marketing and Social Media

Marketing can be a full-time job by itself. In fact, inconsistent marketing is one of the biggest challenges that hold solopreneurs back. 

Your ideal clients may need anywhere between 12-50 touchpoints before they’re ready to buy from you. Doing that manually is next to impossible. 

That’s why I recommend automating your marketing and social media as much as possible. 

First, you’ll want to create one piece of quality content each week to nurture your audience and get in front of new people. (You’re reading one of my pieces of content right now!) Be sure to include calls to action within your content to encourage people to join your email list, book discovery calls, and/or sell your offers.

Then do everything possible to get as much mileage from that piece of content as possible. 

For example, optimize it for SEO so that when people search for a solution, your blog, video, or podcast comes up in their search results. If you own a WordPress website, you can use a free plugin like Yoast SEO to optimize your blog posts. 

Consider promoting your content via Facebook ads to get more eyeballs on it. This could be a low-cost traffic ad to drive traffic to your content. 

Send it out to your email list. You can automate this with an RSS email inside of ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, and other email marketing platforms. 

Promote your content on social media. You can use tools like Jetpack, a WordPress plugin, to automatically syndicate your content to your social media channels. Or you can queue up your content for the week or the month inside a social media scheduling tool like Canva, Buffer, Later, or a similar program. 

Okay, so let’s recap! 

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The 5 easy ways you can automate your coaching business and boost your revenue are: 

1. Appointment scheduling automation
2. Client onboarding automation
3. Payment processing automation
4. Lead generation automation
5. Marketing and social media automation

As you know, knowing about something isn’t the same as doing it. Don’t just read this post and think, I should set those up. I double-dog dare you to take action on this post!

Grab your planner or notebook and do a brain dump for ways you can automate your coaching business. 

• Which of these automations are you already using? 
• Which ones need optimizing or tweaking? 
• Which ones do you need to set up?
• What other automations can you think of you’d like to set up?

Then schedule time on your calendar to get them done! 

Want help setting up these automations in your business? 

Book a clarity call with me to talk about marketing strategy coaching or building a website and automated marketing funnel for your business!