How to Decide When it’s Time to Start Investing in Paid Resources for Your Coaching Business

We know you want to run your coaching business as smoothly as possible while also limiting expenses, so today we’re going to share some ideas about how to decide when it’s time to start investing in paid resources.

If you have any type of business, you are going to have some expenses but that doesn’t mean you can’t run a lean business with low overhead. It just means there is going to come a time when the limitations of free resources are no longer going to meet your needs, and you’ll have to decide which paid tools are worth it for you.

Here’s what you’ll discover on this episode:

The 3 questions we ask ourselves before investing in a paid business tool or service
Examples of free vs paid options for your business
A mistake some coaches make that actually keeps them stuck in a loop of working too hard and not making enough money

We understand that spending money on your business can feel a little scary sometimes, but at some point, it’s going to be a necessity if you’re serious about building your business. The good news is that you get to decide what makes the most sense and what paid tools will get you the most bang for your buck.

When it comes to free versions of resources for your business, there are plenty including MailerLite for your email management, Canva for creating beautiful graphics, PDF guides and presentations, pexels.com and pixabay.com for stock photos, DIY websites and more. These are all great to get you started since you probably want to operate your business as inexpensively as possible. We understand that spending money on your business can feel a little scary sometimes, but at some point, it’s going to be a necessity if you’re serious about building your business. The good news is that you get to decide what makes the most sense and what paid tools will get you the most bang for your buck.

Here’s how we like to make decisions when it comes to expenses. First of all, it often comes down to a mindset shift about what investing in something will mean for you, your business and your clients.

For example, here are 3 questions to ask yourself:

Will it save me time and make my life easier and/or less stressful?

Will it help me do something quicker and more efficiently?

Will it help me generate more revenue?

The answer doesn’t have to be yes to all 3, and you get to decide what expenses make the most sense right now.

Let’s look at a couple of examples for health coaches who may be trying to decide on free vs paid resources.

Maybe you want to provide meal plans or recipes for your clients, or you want to have recipe guides as free resources to grow your email list, but you don’t have the time or desire to create them from scratch. For $30 a month, you can use something like Meal Garden and that will allow you to provide recipes quickly and easily which will free up your time to do other things in your business. Going back to the 3 questions, will it save you time, help you do something more efficiently, allow you to get started sooner and/or help you generate more revenue, the answer is likely yes. We are affiliates for Meal Garden because we think it’s a great resource, but you can check out other options out there. We have found Meal Garden to be one of the most budget-friendly menu planning sites around for health coaches, so we recommend you check it out.

Perhaps you’re at the point in your coaching business where you want to run an online group program, but you know you’ll need to invest in a platform to host it. The first time you run an online program, you can usually do it with a FB group and emails, but if you want more of an all-in-one solution, you may be considering something like Practice Better or Kajabi. If you compare the two, Practice Better is definitely less expensive and it’s geared for wellness business owners, so that could help you save some money. There are other options out there too, but regardless of what you choose, it will be an investment that can allow you to generate more revenue and leverage your time more because you can help a group of people at one time. We are also affiliates for Practice Better too, and we love their platform because it gives you everything you need to run your practice all in one place, and it’s also very budget friendly. Their free version is good for up to 3 clients, so you can test it out before you decide if it’s what you want. If you absolutely have no money yet for an online platform, bootstrap things until you do and keep it to using a FB group and emails. After you run that first or second round, you will likely know if using a paid platform is in your budget.

As a third example, at some point, you’ll likely have to decide if you should outsource certain tasks in your business. If you’re doing everything yourself, you’re not paying for it per se, but you do have to consider how those tasks could be pulling you away from getting clients, so it could actually be costing you something. Whether it’s posting content to your blogs, entering your email content each week, creating graphics for social media, editing your own podcast episode or creating PDF guides, there is so much that can be delegated or outsourced to free up your time to do the things that only you can do such as getting in front of your audience and coaching clients. We did an entire episode about outsourcing, and we’ll link to it in the show notes – it was episode 29 on the Secrets to Outsourcing on a Budget.

There will come a time when you have to look at your business as an actual business, and part of that is understanding you will have expenses. You can choose the option that is the best option for you right now, knowing you can upgrade or change later.

Here are the 3 questions again to help you decide: