Hustle with Heels Podcast

Ep9. Why Online Coaching is the Perfect Start to Your Side Hustle Dream

• Cindy Excell

Share episode

Can online coaching really be the best way to start a side hustle?


Starting a side hustle can feel overwhelming with so many options to choose from. But what if you already have everything you need to begin?


In this episode of Hustle with Heels, I’m diving into why online coaching is one of the best ways to kick off your entrepreneurial journey—especially if you’re juggling a demanding corporate career.


Starting a coaching business doesn’t require a big investment, fancy tools, or a massive audience. It’s about leveraging what you already know, understanding how to connect with clients on a deeper level, and building a flexible business model that grows with you.


If you’ve been waiting for the “perfect” time or business idea to start, this episode will show you how online coaching can be the perfect kickstart for your side hustle journey.


Links

Download Free eBook: How to find the profitable idea for your side hustle

Connect with me on LinkedIn here

Check out my Instagram here



Welcome to the Hustle with Heels podcast. I'm your host, Cindy Excell, a corporate girl, side hustler, wife, and a mom of two. In 2020, I started my first side hustle as an online fitness coach while working in my corporate job as a private wealth manager. Over the years, I have been living proof that a corporate career and a side hustle can absolutely coexist in harmony. Today, I'm helping corporate women and early-stage entrepreneurs create wealth beyond their 9-to-5 jobs and build an online business on their terms. On this podcast, I'll share my knowledge, strategies and stories that will help you start and grow your start hustle. Whether you are ready to diversify your income streams or are looking to build a start business that aligns with your goals, I'm here to support you every step of the way. Now, let's get started. Welcome back to another episode of Hustle with Hills podcast. When it comes to starting a startup hustle, the options can feel endless. You might be thinking about selling products, offering services, or maybe diving into consulting, etc. And thanks to the online business world, starting something on the side in addition to your corporate career has never been easier. You don't need to have big overhead, no physical setup required. Maybe you've thought about creating a digital product, launching a course, or a way to monetize your expertise. But with so many business models to choose from, how do you figure out which one is the right one for you? Especially if you're like me, juggling a full-time job, you have limited time and most likely you haven't got a big audience who have ready to buy from you yet. Here's the truth. Most of us don't want to start a business where we are just trading time for money. That's why a lot of options fall short. But if you are starting from scratch, just like I was nearly four and a half, five years ago, and you want something that is a low cost, straightforward, easy to set up and can be profitable, I've got you covered. In this episode, I'm going to break down why online coaching could be the perfect fit for your side hustle dreams. By the end of this episode, you will understand why this business model not only helps you get your business off the ground quickly, but also can set you up for sustainable success, even if you are completely new to the online space. Now let's get into it. The number one reason why online coaching is one of the best business you should start with is that online coaching is a great entry point to start a business of your own because of a very low startup cost. One of the biggest advantage of starting an online coaching business is how little it costs to get started. You don't need to rent office space. You don't need to buy inventory or invest in any of the expensive tools. All you need is your expertise, a laptop, a good Wi-Fi, and the willingness to help others. That's it. You don't really need any fancy technology or software. Think about it. Most traditional business requires a significant upfront investment. But with online coaching, you're not really tied down by any of those financial barriers. If you have a few hundred dollars to spare, then you can purchase a domain, buy a WordPress website thing, which is what I usually recommend, which you can build your website later on. As a side note, you don't even need a website to get your business off the ground, at least not yet. Or you can use that spare money to invest in course platforms, etc. But when you just start out, these are not even compulsory. You can wait until you start making some money in your business, then invest in all of these I mentioned above. This makes it perfect especially if you are just starting out and you want to test the waters without risking too much. For example, when I first started, I didn't have a fancy website or any high-end tools. I remember the first website I built was on Wix, which was like $10 a month or something. Then after I made money from my first fitness coaching business, I rebuilt my website on WordPress. Again, that was only cost me $50 for the same. And then I use a website for nearly four years for my fitness coaching business. Only until this year, after I pivoted to business coaching, I invested about $200 in the new WordPress theme. The point is at the beginning, all you need is your knowledge. a basic scheduling tool, and Zoom. And you can get all those for free, in fact. And that was enough to get your first clients. So if you are still hesitating because you feel overwhelmed by technology, take a deep breath, start with the basics. You can always upgrade later on as your business grows. Now, move on to the second reason. Starting your business with online coaching is also a great, actually, in my opinion, probably the best opportunity to deeply understand your ideal clients. Coaching can give you something that incredibly valuable that other business models often miss, which is a direct connection to ideal clients. When you are working with people one-on-one, you get to hear their struggles, their pain points. You get to hear the questions they ask and their dreams, their desires, and their goals firsthand. You start to notice patterns and the common language they use. From there, you are going to uncover deeper pain point or the deeper problem and truly understand what they actually need. So this insight is gold. You can use this firsthand information you collected via working with clients one-on-one directly to craft a messaging that resonates with them. You can actually use all this information to create content. that speak to your ideal clients. This information will also become the foundation for your multiple offers later on. And you will be able to utilize these insights to create offer that actually will take your clients from where they are to where they want to be. For example, when I was fitness coaching in my first start hustle, I noticed that many of my clients struggled with emotional eating and forming healthy habits while juggling their working mom life. That actually helped me create my coaching program specifically tailored to solve that problem for my ideal clients. Most importantly, by having in-depth understanding of what your ideal clients needs and wants, this will lay the foundation for scaling your business later on when you are ready to scale your coaching business to create passive income models in the future. Their move on reason number three is that online coaching actually allows you to have flexibility in your offer creation that provides scalable income potential. Online coaching is one of the most flexible business models out there. You got to decide how you want to deliver your services. You can start with the one-on-one private coaching, which is a high ticket offer, meaning you only need two to three clients a month to hit your income goal. This is very doable, especially when you start out and you only have a very small audience, or maybe you even have no audience yet at this stage. As your business grows, you may be booked out with a one-on-one coaching. Then you can add another model such as one-to-many coaching. for example, group coaching program into your business. Over time, as your audience grows, you will gain more experience as an online coach and business owner. You can actually expand to include digital courses, membership, or even workshops, etc. The point is, in the online business world, the sky is truly unlimited. It is completely up to you how big or small you want to grow your online coaching business, and how you want to build your business around your life and your corporate career. You grow your business at your own pace. This works exceptionally well as you just start out with a demanding 9-5 job. Coaching allows you to set your own hours and work with clients in a way that actually fits your lifestyle and your schedule. For example, I still have a full-time job at the moment, and I only had evenings and weekends and my ideal days to work on my coaching business. But because I had flexibility to choose my schedule, I could make the work without burning out. My clients also appreciate that I was intentional with our sessions and I built a business that supported my lifestyle, not the other way around. Again, as your business continues evolving and the new business models you adopt, you can strategically grow your income without adding more hours to your workday. This means that you might create passive income products with your coaching. A primary example is online courses where you can turn your coaching sessions into pre-recorded training and have all those modules available. This scalability is something a lot of side hustles cannot offer. Last but not least, why online coaching is one of the best business model that you should start with is that You already have the knowledge and expertise that you need to get your business off the ground. This is one of the most powerful thing about online coaching. It allows you to turn what you already know into a profitable business. Your knowledge and expertise, whether it comes from your corporate career, your education, a personal transformation experience, or even a natural talent, I also call it as personal strength, can be monetized. You don't have to invent something new or learn a completely different skill set. If you've spent years working in corporate, you already have a goldmine of skills that are directly transferable to coaching. Think about it. Are you good at communication? Are you good at problem solving, leadership, project management, productivity, etc? These are the same skills that can help you guide your clients, navigate challenges, and create a meaningful impact on clients. For example, if you've managed a team, you already know how to lead, how to motivate and communicate effectively. Those same skills apply to coaching. Or if you have been in sales, you would have had experience and understanding client needs and creating solutions, which is a key component of crafting impactful coaching offers. All you need is something you can teach and you are interested in teaching and you are passionate to talk about. and you are a few steps ahead of someone else. There is a common fear I often hear from corporate professionals, which is, who am I to coach someone else? I'm not even an expert. So this is imposter syndrome talking. And it is something that nearly every coach feels potentially at any stage of their business. But here's the thing, you don't need to know everything to help someone else. You don't need to be at the top of the mountain to be a coach. You just need to be far enough along the path to help someone take that next step. Because people don't hire coaches because they are perfect or because they know everything. They hire coaches because they are relatable, they are approachable, and genuinely want to help and able to provide guidance based on real-world experience. If you've overcome a challenge or achieved something that others aspire to, you already have what it takes to coach. For example, I've seen so many coaches succeed because they leaned into their own stories. When I was fitness coaching, I came across a lot of other fitness coaches. They teach their clients from their own transformation or their own experience of losing weight or healthy eating. And they started helping others with weight loss after losing 20 kilos themselves. Some of them weren't certified trainers or nutritionists, but they simply shared the strategy that worked for them. Over time, these coaches gained more experience, and then they went on to obtain the qualification and credentials in health coaching later on. But how they actually connect with their clients It's not because of any qualification. It's because they have walked in their shoes. So your real life experience are often your greatest strengths and the connection points with your clients. Clients want to know that you've been where they are and that you understand their struggles. They are not looking for someone with all the answers. They are looking for someone who's a few steps ahead and they can guide them on their journey and deliver results for them. What makes coaching so powerful is that it allows you to build a business based on who you already are. You are not trying to fit into a mold or become someone you're not. Instead, you are taking your strengths, your knowledge, your story, and using them to create transformations and to help others. Your knowledge is truly valuable, and your experiences are relatable, and your corporate skills give you that edge as well. When you combine all of that with the authentic desire to help others, you have the foundation for a successful and impactful coaching business. Okay, if today's episode gets you thinking about what's possible for you, To make it easy, I've created a free ebook which will further guide you through the first steps of starting your online coaching business. It's called 5 Steps to Find Your Profitable Ideas for a Startup Hustle Online Business. You can find the link in the short note below. I hope once you've downloaded the free ebook and go through it, you are going to realize that your startup hustle dreams are closer than you think. And I want to help you to take that first step to bring them to life. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If this episode resonated with you, I'd love it if you could share it with someone who might find it also helpful, or leave a review so more people can discover this podcast. Until next week, remember the best time to start is now, and messy action is better than no action. every single time. You've got this and I can't wait to see what you create. Thank you so much for listening to the Hustle with Hills podcast. I hope this episode has inspired you to take action towards your sad hustle dream. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a second to rate and review it. Each review helps me help more corporate women and early-stage entrepreneurs just like you. Don't forget to take a screenshot, share it in your Instagram stories or on LinkedIn and tag me at Cindy Excell I will see you next week.