I don't know if it's still the case, but when I did my coach training 6 years ago, there was a lot of hype about how you could make a fortune within your first year, simply by coaching hundreds of clients. It wasn't true for the majority of new coaches then and it certainly isn't true now either.
I believed the hype for far too long and gave myself a hard time about my lack of success. Then I discovered that it was the same for just about everybody else too. So now I believe that it's important to tell it like it is and be realistic about your earning potential as a one-to-one coach.
You see... when you coach one-to-one, you're basically selling your time. Which means that the only way to make more money is to spend more of your time coaching. And much as we coaches love to coach, there's only a finite amount of time we can spend doing that.
* Passive income - the next big thing?
So how can you tap into some of that passive income that everyone's talking about these days? And before we get sucked into the next bucket of hype, is passive income ever truly passive?
Well you probably won't make your fortune from passive income in year one, any more than you will through one-to-one coaching. But... if you already have a website and you're using it to get clients, you have the perfect opportunity to use your website for passive revenue purposes as well.
* Affiliate programmes
The simplest way to do this is to earn commission by recommending products that your target market might be interested in. First you need to find suitable products that (a) you are happy to recommend and (b) offer affiliate commission.
As an example, I have a book review page on my coaching website. Over the years I've written reviews for many of the self development books I've read. So I signed up to the Amazon affiliate programme and now if any of my website visitors like the look of a book I've reviewed, they can click through straight from my website and buy it. I don't make big money. But the occasional £10 cheque is a pleasant reminder of how my past efforts are still paying off now.
There are endless affiliate opportunities out there when you start to look (often you'll find an unobtrusive 'Affiliates' link at the very bottom of a webpage). So check some out and see if you find a fit. Some offer very generous commissions, some less so. Some pay out in dollars, others in sterling. Read the terms and conditions so you know what to expect, and then go for it.
If you add a 'Recommendations' page to your website, it may not initially feel entirely passive. But after a while you could be supplementing your coaching income without using up any more of your time at all.
