How I Went from 1:1 Coaching to 12 Revenue Streams (Without Breaking a Sweat)

OK, I did break a bit of a sweat at times, and it certainly didn’t happen overnight.

But learning how to create new revenue streams in your coaching business – including passive and recurring income streams – might be easier than you think. In fact, keep reading and you’ll learn some simple ways you might add new revenue streams to your business – whether you’re a life coach, health coach, professional organizer, or any kind of coach; just getting started or a seasoned pro.

And along the way, see if you can spot the common factor across many of these coaching revenue stream additions...

From 1:1 to Growing a Coaching Business: Passive Income

My company, Crusher Solutions, LLC, consists of three businesses with distinct, although somewhat overlapping target audiences: ADD Crusher™, Crusher™TV and Crusher™ Coaching, created in that order over the last eight years.

I started a coaching side-hustle based on the productivity strategies I’d developed in my career as a NYC ad executive struggling due to an undiagnosed learning disability – ADHD, with some mild dysgraphia and dyslexia.

Then about 9 years ago, around the time I began my coaching certification and taking on paying 1:1 clients (Revenue Stream #1), I semi-retired from the ad biz and created ADD Crusher™, an all-digital video and audio program for ADHD teens and adults, teaching 10 of my strategies, and sold from ADDCrusher.com as well as on Amazon.

And here we have Revenue Stream #2: a digital product born of my own struggles and generating (mostly) passive income.

I also used that content to create Revenue Stream #3: a day-long, in-person workshop I delivered in several US cities, the UK and the Netherlands. (I could just as well have delivered it online for a less labor- and travel-intensive effort and in fact will be doing so in the near future.)

Next, I did some partnerships with other coaches where they used the ADD Crusher™ “curriculum” to lead their own Group Coaching programs. It was a great win-win because the program represented solid content and structure that they didn’t need to create, and we shared the resulting revenue (Stream #4).

Having grown my email list and social media following to respectable size, I began generating Revenue Stream #5, affiliate income – mostly upsells from online summits at which I speak.

It took a fair amount of work to make all these happen, but once set up, the videos, partnerships, and affiliations: all substantially passive income!

Expanding My Audience – and My Coaching Business Model

Having become a pretty big fish in the ADHD space, I also began doing some paid writing for magazines and some paid speaking gigs, for Revenue Streams #6 and #7. Not big bucks, but nice extra checks most months, and a big reputation boost.

And then it was time for things to really take off…

About six years ago I fully retired from the ad biz and, wanting to expand beyond the ADHD pond, I launched Revenue Stream #8: Crusher™TV, a paid membership providing access to a library of “mini-masterclass” videos on general productivity and personal development.

There are now over 100 of those mini-masterclasses in that library (and many times that many paying Members!). The beauty of a successful membership is the recurring income: every day those monthly and annual renewals roll in…even as I sleep. (Not that a membership is a set-it-and-forget-it business play – far from it – but that’s a topic for another day.)

Next, I published my #1 Best Selling book, Zen and the Art of Productivity, based on scripts from some of those mini-masterclasses. A very nice bit of content re-purposing for Revenue Stream #9, which at this point is 100% passive income.

Then, a couple years ago I launched Crusher™ Coaching with six weekly coaching groups. These are subscription-based, meaning they never end, so I have many group members who’ve been in a group for two years and could potentially stay with me for years to come. A wonderful recurring Revenue Stream #10.

I’ve since added another group for Revenue Stream #11, my weekly Mastermind for Coaches. All seven of these groups represent recurring income that’s far more profitable (and fun, truth be told) than my 1:1 coaching could ever grow to be.

Multiple Streams of Coaching Income via Helping Other Coaches

Building on my Mastermind, where I help coaches grow their businesses while teaching them productivity hacks that help them get the work done, I recently launched my first online course, Alan P. Brown’s Content Creation Bootcamp for Coaches. And my Signature Course, the Business Growth Blueprint, will launch later this year. Online courses thus represent Revenue Stream #12.

In sum, of these 12 distinct revenue streams (10 of which are currently active): most are recurring, some are 100% passive, and all of them I run with relative effortless ease despite being a pretty severe ADDer who reads and writes very slowly.

[***I first published this blog a couple years ago. Since then I've added Revenue Stream #13: Corporate Consulting, and Revenue Stream #14: Virtual Summits.*** -apb]

 

So, what’s the upshot for YOU?

Creating Multiple Streams of Income for Your Coaching Business

You might have noticed an important theme in all this: Most of my new revenue streams flowed from an existing offering, e.g., ADD Crusher™ program from my 1:1 coaching strategies; the partnerships using that program; the book based on scripts from my Crusher™TV videos; and the two courses born of, really, everything I’ve been teaching about business-building and productivity over the years.

The moral of this story is, if you have knowledge that can help others, then you have knowledge that can be packaged in many forms – i.e., many potential business growth and scaling “plays”, as I call them.

So I invite you to consider what marketable knowledge – whether still in your head or perhaps already in some physical or digital form – could be re-purposed into a new revenue stream.

In a future post, I’ll share more detail on how you can build new revenue streams by leveraging content and infrastructure you’ve already got.

What are your thoughts on this topic? I'd love to know. Shoot me an email at [email protected] or DM me on Instagram @alanpbrown.

Bless!

APB

Want to Go Deeper on How to Grow Your Coaching Business?

Here's a Quick Win for you: Set aside some time to just go and look at some great websites for inspiration. Don't just look at other coaches' sites, but also look at online marketers' sites! Check out how they use best practices to convert. And if you want to make sure your site is up to speed, I invite you to download my complimentary 10 Biggest Mistakes Coaches Make on Their Homepage checklist. It's likely you're making one or more of these (very fixable) mistakes.  -apb