Elissa Kelly is the founder of Corporate to Coach™, a program that guides leaders from corporate roles to thriving solopreneurship.
When I walked out of my Fortune 100 executive office for the last time in September 2021, I thought I had it all figured out. After two decades climbing the corporate ladder, I believed my biggest challenge would be starting a coaching business and finding clients for my new practice.
I was completely wrong.
Within months, I discovered what separates profitable executive coach solopreneurs from those perpetually stuck in the hustle: It’s not how many networking events you attend or how perfectly you’ve crafted your elevator pitch. It’s whether you’ve built the foundational systems that can scale without breaking—or breaking you.
Growth isn’t a business development problem; it’s a systems problem.
The Fatal Flaw In Most Coaching Businesses
Here’s the uncomfortable truth I’ve witnessed across hundreds of corporate professionals launching a coaching business: Most aspiring executive coach entrepreneurs jump straight into business development mode. They’re networking furiously, crafting LinkedIn content and chasing every potential lead. Meanwhile, their businesses are built on quicksand.
They’re selling services they haven’t properly defined to clients they can’t systematically serve while operating businesses they don’t actually understand.
The result? A massive failure rate within the first five years for businesses that don’t follow strategic planning principles, according to research from business planning experts. But here’s what’s more telling: Those that survive aren’t just lucky—they’re systematic.
The Three-Pillar Framework For Building A Coaching Business That Scales
After building a coaching business that exceeded my financial expectations, I’ve identified the three pillars that must be solidified before you can successfully scale: strategy, operations and then business development.
Think of it as building a house. You wouldn’t start with the paint and landscaping—you’d begin with the foundation and frame.
Pillar 1: Strategy (Your Foundation)
For successful executive coach solopreneurs, strategy means defining your precise market position with laser clarity, including:
Industry Focus: Are you serving healthcare executives, tech leaders or manufacturing managers? The riches are in the niches when building a coaching business.
Leadership Level: C-suite executives work differently than middle managers. Choose your lane, and be clear about staying in it.
Coaching Specialty: Leadership development, transition coaching and crisis management command different price points and require different delivery methods.
Without this clarity, you’re building a business that tries to serve everyone and ends up serving no one well.
Pillar 2: Operations (Your Infrastructure For Scaling)
Here’s where most new coaches stumble. They’re so eager to land their first client that they haven’t built the infrastructure to serve them excellently. Operations include:
Revenue Operations: Systems for prospect tracking, automated scheduling, client contracts and onboarding materials, financial dashboards and progress measurement tools that demonstrate ROI.
Financial Management: Separate business banking, automated invoicing, expense tracking systems and, most critically, revenue forecasting that shows you exactly how many prospects you need in your pipeline to hit your income goals.
Capacity Planning: A framework that allocates your time strategically—typically 60% client delivery, 25% business development, 10% operations and 5% professional development.
This isn’t about perfection; it’s about having systems that can handle growth without requiring you to rebuild everything each time you add a client.
Pillar 3: Business Development (Your Growth Engine)
Only after your strategy is clear and your operations are solid should executive coach entrepreneurs focus intensively on business development. But here’s the beautiful irony: When pillars one and two are strong, business development becomes significantly easier.
You’re no longer frantically networking, hoping something sticks. Instead, you’re strategically building relationships with a clear value proposition, serving clients with systems that create remarkable experiences and generating referrals from satisfied clients whose results you can systematically track and replicate.
For example, when I clarified my menu of services to focus specifically on corporate teams, I received a referral for team coaching that I might have missed when my positioning was unclear.
The Compound Effect Of Getting The Order Right
When I restructured my approach to follow this sequence, everything changed for my coaching business. Instead of chasing every opportunity, I could confidently turn down clients who weren’t the right fit because I knew exactly who I served best. Instead of scrambling to deliver services, I had streamlined systems that allowed me to focus on the high-value coaching work that transformed my clients’ results.
Most importantly, instead of feeling like I was always one client away from disaster, I had built a predictable, scalable business model that could grow without consuming my life.
Your Next Strategic Move For Building A Coaching Business
The coaches I work with in my Corporate to Coach program often resist this approach initially. They want to skip to the “fun” part—the networking, the content creation, the client conversations. I understand the impulse. Business development feels like progress.
I frequently see executive coach solopreneurs who invest heavily in networking events—buying tables at nonprofit galas, etc.—hoping to generate leads without the foundational systems to convert them effectively. But here’s what I’ve learned after helping dozens of corporate executives transition from corporate to coach: The fastest path to sustainable revenue is through building systems that scale.
The most successful executive coach entrepreneur transition stories I’ve witnessed—including my own—weren’t solo journeys focused on grinding harder. They were strategic adventures supported by clear frameworks, robust operations and, only then, targeted business development.
A Risk-Savvy Strategic Approach To Coaching Success
If you’re currently in corporate and dreaming of building a coaching business, or if you’re already coaching but struggling to scale beyond survival mode, ask yourself this critical question: Are you building on a foundation that can support the business you actually want to create?
The executive coach entrepreneurs who thrive long-term understand this counterintuitive truth: Sometimes the most productive thing isn’t to do more. It’s to pause, build the right foundation and then scale with intention.
Your future clients—and your sanity—will thank you for it.
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