Automated, Not Passive: The Income Coaches Miss

Passive income might be the most damaging myth in the health and wellness coaching space, and it is quietly costing coaches time, money, and peace of mind. The idea that you build something once and never think about it again, while it sells on autopilot forever, is not a reality for our industry.

There is a better model, and it is automated income. In this episode, Valerie Feghali breaks down the real difference between passive and automated (evergreen) income, walks through the sales systems that genuinely run while you sleep, and explains what still needs your attention behind the scenes to build a sustainable, predictable coaching business.

✨ WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER
- The real difference between passive income and automated (evergreen) income
- How to build an evergreen sales system with ads, a sales page, and low ticket offers
- Why a deadline funnel creates urgency and actually serves your clients
- How a membership can create predictable, recurring income for your coaching business
- Why automating your business doesn't mean losing human connection with clients

⭐ MEMORABLE QUOTE
"Think of it as a living, breathing thing that you will have to nurture." – Valerie Feghali (11:55)

🔥 KEY THEMES & CONCEPTS
- Passive income vs. automated income
- Evergreen sales funnels for coaches
- Low ticket vs. high ticket offers
- Deadline funnels and webinar selling
- Membership and subscription income
- Building a sustainable coaching business
- Email marketing and paid advertising

⏱ CHAPTERS
0:00 Passive income vs. automated income
0:43 Why "passive income" is a myth for coaches
1:06 What automated (evergreen) income really means
1:36 The ad and sales page system that isn't passive
2:30 Low ticket offers that sell while you sleep
3:42 High ticket webinars and the deadline funnel
5:09 Why evergreen income still takes real work
5:51 Automating without losing human connection
7:18 Building a coaching business around your life
8:38 How a membership creates predictable income
9:44 Ending the feast or famine launch cycle
10:35 Inside the Wellness Vault membership model
11:03 How low ticket offers feed your biggest sales

👇 YOUR ALL-IN-ONE CONTENT HUB 👇
Juggling meal plans, guides, and social content? Wellness Vault is your ultimate solution. Start your 7-day free trial → https://wellnessvault.com/

⭐ ABOUT VALERIE
Valerie Feghali is a physical therapist turned software CEO, helping health and wellness coaches scale their businesses without burnout. As the founder of The Wellness Vault, she provides white-label resources and strategic coaching to help you grow.

⭐ CONNECT WITH VALERIE
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/v.feghali/
The Wellness Vault: https://wellnessvault.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ValerieFeghali/videos

Disclaimer:
The Fuel The Flow Podcast is for educational purposes only.
The information provided is not intended to replace professional medical or business advice.

⭐ ENJOYED THIS EPISODE?
If this episode gave you value, please leave us a five star review. It only takes a moment, and it helps more health and wellness coaches find the show so we can keep bringing you conversations like this one.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're not helping someone in some way, then your product is likely not going to survive. What you want to do is you want to structure your business around your lifestyle, but make sure that you are not losing out on that human connection. There is such a thing as automated income. We have built a seven-figure business around that. Welcome to the Fuel Your Flow podcast. I am your host, Valerie Fagali, physical therapist, turned software CEO and business coach for health and wellness coaches. We are going to be talking about all things health and business. They might be more closely related than you think. So let's go ahead and get into it. Welcome back to another episode of Fuel the Flow. Today I want to talk about the difference between passive income and automated income because I think the word passive income has become very damaging to people in our industry, in the health and wellness space. It's not a reality. Passive income would be considered something that you create and then you never think it about it again. It just sells on autopilot when you are not doing any work behind the scenes. And the reality is that that's a myth. There's no such thing as passive income in our industry unless you are way up, have created a massive corporation, you are the head of it, and you are no longer working in your business. Maybe I would consider that passive income. Now, there is such a thing as automated income. Now, what is automated income? Automated income is something that happens when you are sleeping or when you are on vacation, that there are still sales coming in. And I absolutely believe that that's possible. Another word that people use for this is evergreen. It's the evergreen model. Now, what an evergreen model is, is when you set up some type of again, automation where people can get on and purchase something while you are not actually there to sell it to them. So an example of this would be that you have some kind of offer that you are selling via a recorded workshop or webinar or just straight from a sales page and potentially have ads running to that sales page. So it would look like this: you would have an paid advertisement that is running in the background. Now, granted, running ads is not passive either. So there needs to be either yourself or somebody on that front that's managing the ads, that's creating new video content, new images, that they're looking at the numbers. Is this ad converting? Are we making sales from this ad? If not, we're going to turn this off. We're going to turn another one on. Do we need to be selling to different audiences with our ads? Right. There's a lot that comes into that. However, you might set it one week and not make any changes to it for a few weeks if it's running well. So it is automated, but it's not passive. Now, that ad would go to some kind of a sales page or an opt-in page. Now you can either sell directly into your product on that page. So this would be great for a low-ticket offer. So think of something that's under $100, maybe even under $50 if you're really considering it a low-ticket offer. And that's something that you could sell direct on the sales page. It doesn't need a lot of warming up, it's more of an impulse buy. Products that do the best in this scenario are things that people can use right away that solve a problem very quickly. So an example of this would be if somebody was going to do a gluten-free diet, right? That they need to cut out gluten from their diet and they need to start this week because they're meeting with a coach or they're meeting with someone and they want to get started on it. Maybe you offer a gluten-free meal plan that comes with the complete shopping list. Go to the store that day with and start immediately. Those types of things do best as immediate offers that it's more of an impulse buy. So people could be buying that, you know, while you sleep, while you're on vacation. Now, that product in itself is going to need updates from time to time. So the product is mostly passive, but the ad system, the sales system to get people to that product is not passive. So again, it's automated, not passive. Now, another way of doing this could be to a higher ticket product that you're selling with a recorded workshop or webinar. So perhaps the ad goes to an opt-in page where people opt in to watch the workshop. And perhaps they have a certain amount of time to watch it. This is called a deadline funnel. A deadline funnel is something where people, once they, you know, opt in or open the email, that they are the the clock starts ticking, right? And so they only have access to that page for a certain amount of time. And this is actually a service to your client because so many people will intend on watching something, will want to watch something. They know they need to, they know they could get value from it, but they kind of push it to the side and keep pushing it off because they just don't feel like they have the time for it right then and there. But if you set a deadline on it, it gives that sense of urgency where people say, okay, I really want this, so I gotta get it done. And that is actually a service to your client because you're giving them that little push that they might need in order to watch the workshop that they are going to get value from. And then from that workshop, you might be selling into your higher ticket program or your next level program. And so that would be another form of an evergreen model that's working while you sleep. The thing is, these are not passive income streams. Someone's going to have to manage the ad. You're likely going to have to redo the sales page multiple times depending on the way that the world changes, the way that the economy changes. After a while, your product might even burn out because new things come up. Think about when AI got developed. So many things that were once valuable were no longer valuable. And so you may have to shift and change your product in order to match what the market needs. And so these are not just passive income streams. You're still there, you're still being active. Now, the other thing is if you're thinking in a way that you just want to sell things passively, you never want to interact with people, you're likely going to have a hard time. When we get the most feedback is when we are face to face with people on the other end. We are actually having that human connection and bond with people. Now, I have a membership program, which is mostly automated. People sign up just like the system we talked about, where I have ads running to a sales page and they get direct access into the membership. So it is an automated system for people to be signing up. However, we get on QA calls, we host workshops, we host webinars that are all live and in person with our community so that we can see what people need. Anytime we release a new feature, we try to get beta testers so that we can talk through what's working, what's not, what they're searching for, what they're having a hard time with. All of that feedback is incredibly valuable for the product that we build for them. We are building a service that helps other people. And that's how businesses operate. If you're not helping someone in some way, then your product is likely not going to survive. We are here, businesses are here to service other people or businesses. And so we need to come at it from that lens and say, I need to be in contact with my buyer so that I know exactly what it is that they are looking for, so that I can collect that data, so that I can be of the best possible service for them. So when you're building something that runs on Evergreen, I don't want you to think of it as something that is causing you to disconnect and no longer have to be with the buyer. Now, granted, what I love about it is that I'm no longer on a tied schedule. So I don't have to show up for calls at a certain time every week. I don't have to meet one-on-one with people based around their schedule and when they're available. I do everything in our business based on my schedule, when I'm available, when I'm ready to meet. And if people can make it, great. If they can't make it, then unfortunately I'm not available for that. And that is something that is incredibly valuable for me and incredibly important to me to protect my time and to protect my peace and make sure that I can still continue to be as passionate and as of service as possible for this community. So what you want to do is you want to structure your business around your lifestyle, but make sure that you are not losing out on that human connection. And make sure that you are, if you are building something that runs on evergreen, that you are still continuing to understand that it's work, that it's not passive income, that you're still going to have to be involved, that you're going to have to iterate and change and update and make sure that things are running smoothly and as they should be. What I would advise that you do is build something that is evergreen in your business. It's nice to have that consistency. One of the best things that I ever did was build my membership. And the reason that that's one of the best things that I have is because it's predictable. I know exactly how much income is coming in from the membership every single month. I know how quickly it's growing. Now, granted, that slightly shifts month to month, but it's not a drastic change. We have an idea of the trajectory. We have quite a bit of data of how quickly or slowly that it's growing, which months are going to do great, which months are going to be a little bit slower growth, but it's very predictable and sustainable. And so having that built into our business is incredibly important. Now, it doesn't necessarily have to be a membership. It can be a product, a one-time sale. But once you've collected a year or so of data on it, you can see the trends and you can see which months are good, which months are not so good, when maybe it might take a little bit, if something specific is going on in the world, how it's going to affect your product. But having that Evergreen system allows you to adjust your schedule the way that you want it to be and be there for your clients in a stronger way in other parts of your business. So let's say you have, for example, a low-ticket offer that you're selling or something mid-ticket that you're selling on Evergreen. That brings in consistent leads so that you're not necessarily having to do these one to two or three times a year huge launches where everything relies on these money that you're pushing to these launches because you have consistent new clients coming through the door that are likely going to buy other things from you as well. Having that low-ticket offer or having a mid-tier offer isn't the end goal. That's not all you're selling. It's very hard to build a business on just one low-ticket offer. Now, granted, you can in if it's in a membership form. So for us, for example, our membership program, the wellness vault, is a low-ticket offer. It's $39 a month. And then we're soon going to have a second tier too, which is very exciting, which we're launching soon. It's going to be incredible, but it is a low-ticket offer, and we have built a seven-figure business around that because it is a membership model. It's a subscription model, and people are paying month after month. Now, if we just sold one off low-ticket offers, that would be a little bit harder to scale. However, what that does for us, we do have low-ticket offers that we sell for a one-time purchase. And the beauty of that is that it brings in new people on a consistent basis. Again, while I sleep, it's automated, not passive. And then with those leads, they oftentimes end up buying into the membership or buy a more expensive product from us because they begin to know who we are. They start to trust us because they've tried our products and they know that it works for them. And so it brings that consistent business in and builds our email list, is where we make most of our sales. The majority of our business comes from email marketing and paid advertisements. And so I encourage you to build something on Evergreen, but don't think of it as a passive product. Think of it as a living, breathing thing that you will have to nurture. So if you got value from this episode, make sure to share it with a friend. Also, please leave us a review. We would be so incredibly grateful. It's how we keep the podcast going for you. I hope to see you again on the next one. I hope you enjoyed our conversation from today. Any links we discussed will be in the show notes below. Also, we would be incredibly grateful if you would leave us a five star review. This helps us keep the podcast going so that we can continue to provide value for all of you. I hope we see you on the next one.