Episode 21
The 7 Growth Drivers Every Coach Needs for Consistent Clients and Income
Feeling stuck in your coaching business and wondering why growth feels so hard? You’re not alone and the problem isn’t you.
In this episode of The Solo Coach Podcast, we’re diving into why so many coaches spin their wheels despite doing all the things. I’m walking you through the LEVEL-UP Framework—the same one I developed after years behind the scenes of multi-million dollar coaching companies and inside my own business.
If you’ve ever felt burnt out from chasing strategies that don’t work or doubted whether you’re cut out for this, this episode is for you. We’ll explore:
● Why consistent growth isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing the right things.
● The 7 Growth Drivers every coaching business needs (and how to check where you’re leaking energy).
● How to get out of the loop of "fixing" things that aren’t the real problem.
As a solo coach building a business without a massive team or big budget, this episode will empower you to finally move the needle with clarity and momentum.
What You’ll Learn:
● Why most coaches stay stuck (hint: it's not lack of effort).
● The 7 essential Growth Drivers in the LEVEL-UP Framework.
● How to spot where your business is out of alignment—and what to do first.
Resources Mentioned:
● Join my free newsletter for weekly coaching growth tips
Support the Show:
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review! Your feedback helps other solo coaches discover the show and grow their businesses too.
Transcript
What I now know about consistent growth, clarity and coaching success.
Speaker:After stumbling my way through every phase of the level up journey, there's this
Speaker:version of me that honestly believed if I just bought one more course or one more
Speaker:template or one more proven system, I'd finally feel like things were working.
Speaker:I'd wake up one day with the perfect offer, the clients pouring in, the clarity
Speaker:and the momentum that would carry me forward into our with a
Speaker:very well oiled machine.
Speaker:What actually happened?
Speaker:I stayed stuck in a loop.
Speaker:A very expensive and emotionally exhausting loop.
Speaker:Eventually I stopped searching for the thing and started looking at what was
Speaker:working and what wasn't and where my energy was bleeding out.
Speaker:Let's get into this a little bit further first.
Speaker:I'm Michelle Sarah.
Speaker:This is my channel Coach Diaries where I share everything with you about what it
Speaker:takes to build a coaching business solo and take you along with me on my very
Speaker:ambitious journey to grow my email list by 4000 new subscribers this year.
Speaker:2025 without any paid ads or complicated strategies.
Speaker:You know, recently I was traveling and I did get a lot of my content pre scheduled
Speaker:before I left, which felt really good.
Speaker:However, I wish that I had pre scheduled more because I came back and I was so very
Speaker:exhausted and taken out of my daily routine that I found it really difficult
Speaker:to get back into the flow of really difficult.
Speaker:My energy was low.
Speaker:I was kind of discombobulated, right?
Speaker:I what is, what day is it again?
Speaker:Like what, what am I supposed to get done today?
Speaker:What, you know, in my content stack am I supposed to be working on?
Speaker:And I had to come back to the framework.
Speaker:This is the thing that I always, always come back to that helps
Speaker:me to get straight again.
Speaker:You know, everything that I have learned over the years and whether it was when I
Speaker:worked behind the scenes of these multimillion dollar coaching companies
Speaker:is in building my own coaching business that I realized that.
Speaker:And I've probably shared this before.
Speaker:We do have these growth drivers that are absolutely necessary to that you have set
Speaker:up in your business so that it can grow, right?
Speaker:You have to create, you have to build something that is designed to grow.
Speaker:Most coaches, when they're starting out, or even for that matter, they could be
Speaker:several years into it and their business just isn't set up to to grow.
Speaker:And of course they're not growing or they're experiencing these
Speaker:peaks and valleys, right?
Speaker:They get a couple of new clients that come in and they're on cloud nine
Speaker:and everything's wonderful.
Speaker:And then months and months and months go by.
Speaker:Of nothing.
Speaker:And that is because they don't have the growth drivers in place.
Speaker:And it doesn't matter whether you are brand new, you've been in in it for a few
Speaker:years or for that matter, it's this, you know, multimillion
Speaker:dollar coaching company.
Speaker:The growth drivers are all the same.
Speaker:You know, this understanding that I gained through the work that I did for
Speaker:others as well as myself became the my level up framework.
Speaker:And it's not really a checklist and it's not really a blueprint, but it does serve
Speaker:as a checklist or a blueprint from time to time, right?
Speaker:So for example, coming back from these travels and just being so very exhausted
Speaker:and worn out and discombobulated, I can then turn to this framework as a
Speaker:checklist and say, okay, let's get back on track.
Speaker:Start with the first one, right?
Speaker:It's a way to spot what needs attention.
Speaker:It's like the lens to look at your business through when you're off the track
Speaker:or you feel like nothing is working or you've been traveling
Speaker:and you're wiped out. Right.
Speaker:It's a way to grow steadily and consistently.
Speaker:It's like putting your intention and attention in growth drivers always.
Speaker:So even if you're, you know, working on email marketing right now, but then
Speaker:tomorrow you're going to look at list growth, you know that those are growth
Speaker:drivers and at least the energy you're putting into the work that you're doing
Speaker:is towards growing your coaching business.
Speaker:And this is what I have always been teaching and guiding through.
Speaker:Especially like in my mastermind is this framework and it's actually
Speaker:what my next book is about.
Speaker:It's what I am working on currently.
Speaker:So here's what I've learned from living inside this for years and why it still
Speaker:holds me steady no matter what's going on externally.
Speaker:Because, you know, hey, life is life and sometimes we have we dealing with a whole
Speaker:lot of hard stuff, heavy stuff, right?
Speaker:None of us get to escape it.
Speaker:It's going to come around.
Speaker:That's the way life is, right?
Speaker:So it's also really nice that in those moments you have something very grounding
Speaker:and stable to come back to for your business.
Speaker:Most coaches are focusing on the wrong fix.
Speaker:And honestly, I mean, because I've certainly been.
Speaker:It's because you don't know what the right fix is, but you're not
Speaker:going to stand still, right?
Speaker:You're determined to do something and work on something.
Speaker:If you're like most coaches, you're trying to do your way out of A feeling.
Speaker:I laugh because I still do this from time to time, right?
Speaker:You're trying to do your way out of a feeling, right?
Speaker:Things don't feel great.
Speaker:I, you know, whether it's something you've got going on personally or you're in a
Speaker:lull in your business, something didn't work the way you had hoped it would.
Speaker:And instead of processing that feeling and kind of breaking it apart and reframing
Speaker:managing your own mind, you're gonna just try to do your way through that feeling.
Speaker:You think you need a better strategy or maybe you may need more content
Speaker:or a different offer altogether.
Speaker:And I can tell you from experience that's rarely the case.
Speaker:But it isn't to say that you never will or this will never be the case, but it's
Speaker:usually true that you don't need to go changing everything, right?
Speaker:You don't need to do more necessarily.
Speaker:You just simply need to look at these growth drivers, this framework that I'm
Speaker:gonna share, and determine where you feel really strong
Speaker:and where you don't and put your intention and attention there.
Speaker:Let me show you what I mean.
Speaker:Here's what I now see when I look at my own business and the
Speaker:ones that I help grow.
Speaker:List growth is number one, right?
Speaker:Without an audience to see your work gain from your wisdom and ultimately purchase
Speaker:from you, you really have nothing but a whole lot of busy work and distractions.
Speaker:So list growth is always number one.
Speaker:Now further on is energy.
Speaker:And you know, energy is the umbrella for all of it.
Speaker:Outside of energy, you're going to always start at the top of this list.
Speaker:List growth, how's that going?
Speaker:Are you growing your, your list regularly?
Speaker:Every single month?
Speaker:Email marketing, you have this community, right?
Speaker:You have this list. Are you communicating to them regularly?
Speaker:And by regularly, I mean not once a month, not even twice a month,
Speaker:but at least once a week.
Speaker:And I would love to see more visibility.
Speaker:You think it's about being everywhere?
Speaker:Not ne necessarily.
Speaker:I experiment with a lot of different modalities for visibility to find
Speaker:what works really well for me.
Speaker:But if you can tap into visibility efforts that are perfect for
Speaker:you and saturated with your audience, you don't need a lot energy.
Speaker:As I said, this overrides everything.
Speaker:This goes from mental energy.
Speaker:Do you have the mental energy and bandwidth to do what you need
Speaker:to do today or this week?
Speaker:Do you tap into your ability to manifest, to create what you want?
Speaker:And if you're struggling with that, if you're struggling with keeping your
Speaker:vibration high, then mind management comes in next.
Speaker:Because that's the part that explains to you and the part that I teach what's
Speaker:actually going on in your brain.
Speaker:Has the chimp totally hijacked your brain?
Speaker:And these are things that you need to understand so that you can better
Speaker:manage your own state of mind.
Speaker:Vibration lead to sales.
Speaker:So this is all about your offers, your offer stack or how you build capacity for
Speaker:your audience to move through your offers and ultimately to your
Speaker:top tier offer, right?
Speaker:Or your high ticket offer, whatever the case may be.
Speaker:Are you building their capacity to take every step along the way and reach
Speaker:their own big desired outcomes?
Speaker:That's the ultimate service that we can provide as coaches upgrade your skills.
Speaker:Now, there is a dark side to this because I see this a lot with coaches who are
Speaker:stuck in learning mode, perpetual learning mode.
Speaker:I just need to take one more course.
Speaker:I just need to take one more program that holds them in this cycle of not
Speaker:really launching and not really getting their business out there because they
Speaker:don't feel that they know enough.
Speaker:And trust me, you may never know enough.
Speaker:Whatever enough means, right?
Speaker:We can always learn more.
Speaker:And I love learning.
Speaker:Like left to my own devices, that's probably all I would do anyways.
Speaker:But it can hold us back.
Speaker:And so trust that you know enough right now to take the very next step and to
Speaker:get going and don't get stuck in that.
Speaker:However, this is part of my framework because as I'm going through this like
Speaker:list, growth, email marketing, visibility, energy lead to sales.
Speaker:Upgrading my skills.
Speaker:Hold up, let me check in.
Speaker:Is there something that I need to learn in order to move forward?
Speaker:Am I. Are my skills lacking somewhere?
Speaker:For example, someone who has never sold before, do they need to learn a little bit
Speaker:about how to have a sales conversation or the different ways that they
Speaker:can sell for that matter.
Speaker:Do we need, do you need to learn how to write copy?
Speaker:Now I know we have AI to do that for us, but if you don't know what structural
Speaker:components need to be in the copy that lead to something converting or actually
Speaker:selling, it might help you to learn a little bit or the basics
Speaker:about copywriting.
Speaker:These are just examples.
Speaker:Know what your skills are, know where your skills aren't.
Speaker:And do you need to do something to shore up those skills, balancing it with.
Speaker:Or is that just a distraction? Right?
Speaker:And the last thing is practicing consistency, because consistency is by far
Speaker:the most important growth driver for any of this.
Speaker:So even for energy, like if you don't have daily practices in place to build and
Speaker:nurture and maintain your energy consistently, then none of the
Speaker:Other stuff's going to get done.
Speaker:So practicing being consistent.
Speaker:I want you to be growing your list consistently.
Speaker:I want you to be emailing your list consistently.
Speaker:I want you to be getting visible, bringing visibility to your business
Speaker:and your work consistently.
Speaker:I want your energy to be taken care of, consistency.
Speaker:Knowing that sometimes we're going to have low days like coming back from traveling.
Speaker:I want your offers and your selling to be consistent.
Speaker:I want you to be upgrading your skills consistently as it pertains to what's
Speaker:needed to keep your business growing.
Speaker:You know, and I caution too, because I don't want you to feel like that you need
Speaker:to master all of these, all of these seven points right now.
Speaker:Not at all.
Speaker:I don't want you getting bogged down in that.
Speaker:I want you to use this as a tool to say, am I doing work that is
Speaker:going to grow my business?
Speaker:And if you're in one of these categories, then yes, you are.
Speaker:The point here is to see which part is quietly asking for attention
Speaker:and put your energy there.
Speaker:I always check in with energy first, of course, because that dictates how any of
Speaker:the rest of it is going to go or whether it gets done at all.
Speaker:And then go from the top of the list down, as I said, checking in with each step.
Speaker:You know, clarity comes when you know what's out of sync rather than a feeling
Speaker:of frustration and saying nothing is working.
Speaker:What specifically isn't working, right?
Speaker:What's out of sync? Here's what I know.
Speaker:Most of the time when I felt stuck or overwhelmed, it wasn't
Speaker:because I wasn't doing enough.
Speaker:It was because one piece of the level up system or framework or puzzle
Speaker:was off and I didn't know it.
Speaker:So I would just run off in this direction doing this busy work that didn't
Speaker:really do any good anywhere, right?
Speaker:Because I know I needed to do something.
Speaker:This shows you what you need to do.
Speaker:So my energy was being used up by things that weren't moving me forward.
Speaker:For example, I kept changing my offer over and over, thinking that
Speaker:that was the problem.
Speaker:When actually I wasn't growing my list and therefore I wasn't promoting
Speaker:to anyone consistently.
Speaker:I didn't have enough people to actually see the offer.
Speaker:Or when I was just starting out and I had a very tiny, tiny list.
Speaker:My list is still small, but it was even smaller in the beginning, right?
Speaker:Just a hundred people maybe.
Speaker:And I was making my offer and after a while I was like, you
Speaker:know, nobody's buying.
Speaker:Well, that's the same.
Speaker:People are seeing the offer over and over again, there isn't any new
Speaker:fresh eyes coming in, right?
Speaker:Another time I was struggling to stay consistent and I wasn't getting any new
Speaker:clients or sales as a result, my energy was drained because I was trying to be
Speaker:everywhere without first mastering consistency.
Speaker:And so list growth, email marketing, all of that.
Speaker:You want to become consistent and get to a place that you can maintain that
Speaker:consistency before you move on.
Speaker:I now use LevelUp as a kind of internal diagnostic tool.
Speaker:I mean, I literally check in and ask, am I showing up with the kind of
Speaker:energy I want people to feel?
Speaker:Am I creating a connection or just broadcasting content?
Speaker:Do I feel clear on what I'm offering and who it's for?
Speaker:Do I need a skills upgrade or just to apply the ones I already have?
Speaker:Is my consistency rooted in sustainability or panic, fear or lack?
Speaker:Knowing what to do next is how you generate momentum.
Speaker:And when you can do that over and over again efficiently, you give life to that
Speaker:momentum and it begins to create itself, it begins to create growth.
Speaker:Coming back again to the point that we need to be building a coaching business
Speaker:that is designed to grow, that is set up to grow.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:And these seven steps, these are all growth drivers.
Speaker:So this means more engagement, more conversations, more sales, more clients.
Speaker:And well, as I said, growth, big growth comes from micro wins.
Speaker:One of the most freeing things I ever realized was this.
Speaker:You don't need a massive breakthrough, you need just a micro win in the right place.
Speaker:It's what keeps us moving forward.
Speaker:One week I created a low tier offer that I had sudden and clarity energy around
Speaker:and I got three sales in that week.
Speaker:Now that might not seem like a lot, but coming from 0 to 3 in the week
Speaker:was like, wow, okay, this is cool.
Speaker:This works, right?
Speaker:Another time I added a single line to my PS in an email and someone booked a one
Speaker:to one session that led to a client.
Speaker:Tiny moves, real momentum.
Speaker:That's how level up works in real life.
Speaker:Especially if you're a solo coach trying to build something meaningful without
Speaker:a full team or unlimited time.
Speaker:Who has that, really?
Speaker:It gives you a place to look when things feel off or you feel
Speaker:like nothing's working.
Speaker:That's a really good indicator that you need to take a closer look at very
Speaker:specific growth drivers in your business and ask, which one needs attention
Speaker:or do they even exist at all?
Speaker:And a way to come back into alignment with what actually moves the needle.
Speaker:So where do you start?
Speaker:Well, ask yourself, this is my energy solid?
Speaker:If not, find out what's draining it and address that rest and refill and then
Speaker:start at the top of that list with list growth.
Speaker:Don't look at the seven steps and pick one that you think should be working on.
Speaker:That's not the way this is designed.
Speaker:Remember, this is after a good 17 years of being in the industry and looking at what
Speaker:was really working well for these companies and in what order and then
Speaker:carrying that through into my own business and then observing it in many other
Speaker:coaches businesses, they're in this order for a reason.
Speaker:For example, if you're not not actively growing your list, your emails aren't
Speaker:going to get enough new eyes, your offers will have already been seen right, by
Speaker:people who aren't taking action on it.
Speaker:That doesn't mean that nobody wants what you're offering.
Speaker:It means you haven't gotten it in front of enough people.
Speaker:I just had a conversation earlier today with a coach and when I went through this
Speaker:framework with her, we went through list growth.
Speaker:Yes, list is growing steadily every month.
Speaker:I'm emailing every week.
Speaker:I could probably email more, but I am emailing every week.
Speaker:Visiting, visibility is good.
Speaker:I have blog articles out there.
Speaker:I'm also in person, in classes, so on and so on.
Speaker:Energy is, you know, so, so I do need to give some attention to it, but it's okay.
Speaker:And then we got to lead to sales and she was like, oh yeah, I'm not really
Speaker:making offers in my emails at all.
Speaker:So ding, ding, ding. There you go.
Speaker:There's a really good bit of insight into how this can not be working.
Speaker:Someone's doing all the right things, it seems, and things aren't working well.
Speaker:And she's missing this one key ingredient, this one growth driver, right?
Speaker:So you don't need to overhaul your business.
Speaker:You just need to know where to look and what to take action on, what to bring
Speaker:your intention and attention to.
Speaker:And this framework, this level up framework is your tool now too, okay?
Speaker:When you have this, you control your growth gently, powerfully and sustainably.
Speaker:That's how we level up around here.
