The 5 Best Revenue Models to Grow Your Coaching Team Fast

Good coaching businesses tend to have three components: expert coaching, a passion for passing on that expertise—and the right coaching model for their audience, expertise, and environment.

That third component can be difficult to achieve. After all, being a great coach doesn't necessarily mean having an in-depth understanding about what coaching models best suit your audience and business.

Fortunately, you're not on your own. Let's dig into the ins and outs of revenue models for coaching businesses, from executive coaching to online coaching and beyond.

How Can I Grow My Coaching Team Fast?

Let's face it: simply offering some coaching services on the side, with a few clients, is rarely enough. You want to grow your coaching team and business, and do so as quickly and sustainably as possible.

For that to happen, you need to bring in reliable revenue. But first, it makes sense to get an idea of the basic coaching model you want to pursue. For example:

• If you want to keep it simple, with yourself and maybe a partner as a coach, a more centralized revenue model probably makes the most sense.
• If you want to leverage a community of self-managing coaches, like our client Ikagi Consulting, a more distributed subscription model tends to be beneficial.

Growing your coaching business fast, then, means defining your exact vision for how you want to provide your coaching and business training. From there, it's about determining exactly how you can leverage that vision into consistent, reliable revenue.

How Instructional Coaching Models Can Influence Your Revenue Streams

Think about the different ways in which your audience may support the many potential coaching models in business. Are they looking for one-to-one live instruction or pre-recorded courses available online? Do they prefer subject-specific business training, or more general executive coaching models?

It doesn't have to end there, either. The innovation wave in the professional services industry is real. Newer coaching models in business that can bring in new types of revenue streams include anything from knowledge-as-a-service models to community-based models, productized service models, and more.

What is a Revenue Model in Business?

Simply put, a revenue model is an exact plan of how your coaching business will generate income to cover costs and, over time, becomes profitable.

In other words, the many different coaching models in business succeed and fail based on how they can bring in revenue. The opportunities can range from an additional revenue stream for a pet health company all the way to monetizing your online business training courses.

What Are the 5 Best Types of Coaching Revenue Models?

Enough with the prelude. We've covered the fact that your coaching structure should be the driving factor behind your coaching model, which in turn should drive your revenue coaching model. Let's get to the heart of it all: the best types of service-based revenue models for your business.

1.  Subscription Service-Based Revenue Model

This coaching model relies on a steady stream of coaching content. It's based on the knowledge-as-service business model outlined above: your audience subscribes to your business, and receives a continuous stream of value to justify their subscription.

Using a coaching platform like Profi, much of this process can be automated. For example, you can create multiple subscription tiers, with the lowest-level subscribers only getting pre-recorded coaching content while higher-paying clients can also get personal sessions with one of your consultants.

2. Coaching-As-Product Revenue Model

Taking it one step further, using a coaching-as-product revenue approach can work especially well as a more complete online business model. In this approach, your online coaching business doesn't offer any live sessions or individualized services for clients. Instead, content is available for a fee (subscription or per-unit) online, for anyone to purchase and access.

With this type of approach for your online coaching business, learner experience becomes absolute key. Because you're removing the personalized touch from your online business model, you have to make sure that every touchpoint you have, and every piece of coaching content you offer, adds tangible value for your paying clients.

3. Individual Executive Coaching Model

A more customized alternative to typical subscription, the executive coaching model generates revenue through highly individualized services.

In this example, fewer of your courses and sessions are pre-recorded, because they're more likely to be customized for each individual client. The coach becomes a more traditional business consultant, relying on in-depth information and multiple sessions to bring the client business forward.

Driving revenue through an executive coaching model is more volatile because the revenue stream is less distributed. Fewer but more high-value clients require longer recruitment cycles, and losing a client or winning a new client can make a larger impact on your business income.

4. Affiliate and Revenue Sharing Model

This coaching model is the first non-centralized option on the list. Instead of working through full-time coaches employed by your consultancy, you create a community of coaches that can earn a portion of the revenue but are responsible for their own content, recruitment, and sessions.

Using revenue sharing through a coaching community can lead to rapid growth because your reach can expand much faster. However, it relies more heavily on a unified process among a more heavily distributed workforce, which is a major reason why our client Ikigai Consulting has been so successful leveraging Profi Network in a similar approach.

5. Product Software Training Revenue Model

Finally, we've seen a number of online coaching businesses be successful with a revenue model focusing on product software and business training. For example, Profi client Taopatch delivers its software product alongside training modules, creating onboarding modules that drive customer adoption and ultimately increase revenue for its software.

In this approach, revenue comes not through the coaching model itself but the online training software to which it is attached. Instead, the training modules are a part of the value proposition, driving a more positive customer experience and building more indirect coaching revenue streams as a result.

What is the Best Revenue Model for Online Coaching?

Ultimately, there is no single best revenue model for online coaching. We've seen clients be immensely successful using anything from subscriptions to executive coaching and product software training. The best approach comes down to your audience, the type of coaching content you offer, and the larger environment and alternatives available to your audience.

For example, you might have unique insights in entrepreneurial leadership based on your own experience, and existing startup connections. In that case, an executive coaching model may be most beneficial. But if you have the ability to develop large amounts of coaching content, a subscription or product-based coaching model may make more sense to gain revenue and grow your coaching team quickly.

Which Online Coaching Business Model is the most Profitable?

While there is no single most profitable online coaching business model, the software you use on the backend can make a significant impact on your revenue streams and profitability. From managing coaching content to scheduling executive coaching sessions and building a community of coaches, the right professional coaching app can make a huge difference in the financial success of your business.

That's where Profi comes in. Our platform is versatile enough to support a large variety of online business coaching models, and we'd love to show you the ropes. Book a Demo with one of our Product Coaches today to better understand how Profi can help you drive revenue and build your coaching business fast.