Quote that changed my life
If you're a six-figure coach or consultant looking to grow in 2024 with a method that allows you to have and experience freedom and not be tied to a business that drags you down, this post is for you. In this post, I want to break down the exact process that I took in my one-person coaching business to go from zero to $850,000 in 2023. Back in 2016, I heard this quote that fundamentally changed my life. It was by a personal development guru named Jim Rohn. The quote was, "You are the average of the Five People You Surround Yourself With." And at that point in my life, I looked at my five people and I thought, I need to make a big change. The five people in my circle are not supportive, they're not like-minded, we don't have the same values. These are people that if I want to improve the quality of my life. If I want to improve the quality of my future, I need to change my environment. So I took that thinking and that was the birth of what would now be my business. The goal in this post is to show you how to work with less clients in 2024, but to generate more revenue.
Problems you might be running into
If you're in the coaching or consulting space right now, chances are you're running into one, if not three, of these big problems. The first problem being is that you're focused on one-time sales. One-time sales allow you to collect money up front, but then there's no monthly recurring revenue. You get paid now, that means you don't get paid again next month. I used to make a lot of one-time sales in my business. It was super stressful because at the start of every month, guess what? I'd be starting back at zero dollars again. And every month seemed like this race to the top. Every month felt extremely stressful At the start of every month, I would get nervous because I knew my credit card bills were due on the 23rd of the month. But on day one of the month, I'd be starting back again at zero. So I'd have to put on my prospecting hat and start DMing people. And it just didn't feel good to me. The second problem that I ran into was that I couldn't really find a marketing channel or a marketing vehicle that I felt really good about. I saw other coaches and consultants doing challenges, three-day challenges, five-day challenges.
I saw coaches doing evergreen webinars, which never felt good to me. I saw coaches running Facebook ads, which unfortunately never worked for me. I saw people paying for referrals, which, again, that didn't really feel overly good to me. And the last thing I wanted was to use hope to grow my business. I didn't want to grow my business just based on word of mouth, and I definitely didn't want to grow my business just hoping somebody would come and find me. And the third big problem I was running into was I was far undercharging for the value that I was bringing to the table for my clients. And maybe you're experiencing one or all three of these right now. Maybe you're starting every month at zero and you're focused on one-time sales. And that's why you can't crack 5, 10, 15, 20K a month. It's because you're focused on one-time sales. Or maybe you're in camp number two, where you have not found yet a marketing strategy that you feel really good about that can generate leads on a weekly or monthly basis and get you new clients. You're still undercharging for your services. Even though your clients are having massive, massive wins, you're still undercharging out of fear or a lack of confidence.
Now, before I show you how I went from zero to $850,000 using three different offers that all have a monthly recurring component, the first objection you're probably going to have is you're going to think, Well, at Karan, I don't have a large enough following. And that's okay. I didn't have a large following either. In fact, I niched into a brand new niche where not a single person knew me. One of the biggest things you're probably going to be thinking is that you don't have a large audience. And let's be real, in the world of social media today, you really don't need a large audience. You need to find a group of people that believe what you believe. So if you can do that, you can get to a multi six figure business with just a dozen or two dozen clients. The second thing you're probably wondering is that you're going to have to spend a fortune in Facebook ads or Instagram ads or any paid marketing media acquisition strategy to get new clients. And the good news is that if you want to just grow organically, then as long as you get your content strategy dialed in, you can send DM's and get new clients every single month without spending a dollar on ads.
Identify your avatars
And the third thing you might be wondering or you might be thinking to yourself is that you're not an expert, but you are an expert to three types of people. And when in doubt, speak to three different types of avatars. I tend to speak to my past avatar, which is Who was I five years ago? So think about this. Who were you three years ago? Who were you five years ago? Is your content, is your marketing speaking to that person? That's avatar number one is your past self. Avatar number two is your current self, meaning where are you right now? What are you working on right now? What messages do you need to hear today? That would be your avatar number two. And your avatar number three is your future self. Where do you see yourself a year from now, three years from now, five years from now? And what does that person need to hear? What is that person working towards? What dreams and fears and aspirations and frustrations does that person have? And any time you speak to one of those three avatars, your past self, your current self, or your future self, assuming, of course, that you are working with a version of yourself, most coaches and consultants that I meet and that I work with, you're trying to attract people that are like you. Maybe you're helping them make money. Maybe you're helping them get in better shape. Maybe you're helping them improve the quality of their relationship at home. If you serve one of those three categories, happiness, love, money, then chances are in some ways you are trying to find other people like you. So when in doubt, speak to those three avatars.
Benefits of Monthly Recurring Revenue
There's three big benefits of having a business model that focuses on generating monthly recurring revenue. The first, of course, is that your business begins to feel like fun and you don't feel like a slave to your business. Because if you have money coming in every single month, you have a set number of clients paying you on a weekly or monthly or quarterly basis, well, then you've established recurring revenue. You've established cash flow, which is really important in your business. And what that prevents you from doing is having to worry stress and freak out at the start of every single month, feeling like you have to start at zero. Second cool thing about introducing MRR into your business is that as long as you have access to Wi-Fi and a laptop, typically you're going to be able to work from anywhere you want in the world.
So it will allow you to create more of a lifestyle-based business where you don't have to be in an office, you don't have to be in a certain environment. You can work from coffee shops, you can work internationally, you can work as long as you're connected to WiFi, you have access to Zoom or Facebook groups or however you service your clients, where you truly can work from anywhere. If you don't have people coming to you physically and you just need to connect to them using the Internet, well then that's what I would call a lifestyle-based business. The third big benefit, and this one is a little bit selfish, which I think it should be, is that you get to do a lot more for your family if you know you have monthly recurring revenue coming in. For example, you can start taking your family on vacations. Whether you're a materialistic person or not, having more money, having access to capital, does allow certain levels of freedom and choices and options that you don't have if you're always stressed out. So if you have monthly recurring revenue coming in, well, you can predict how much cash flow you're going to make for the rest of this year just based on some simple math and some simple projections.
The 3 ways I make money
So I'm going to simplify my monthly recurring revenue model as simply and effortlessly as I can. So grab a piece of paper, grab a pen, take some notes, and then we'll try to create a version of this for yourself. In my business presently, I have three different ways I make money. One is through a group coaching program. The Second is through strategic one-on-one relationships. And the third is using live events and retreats to generate new business. So if we look at my business model in 2023, I launched a group coaching program. This was the first time I launched a group coaching program where I was able to leverage my time. The problem with having tons of one-on-one clients is you get burned out. It's not scalable. And unfortunately, there's just only so many hours in the day that you have to work with one-on-one people before you yourself get burned out.
Group coaching program
I used to chase one-on-one clients all the time, and I realized it was a lot of work. It was definitely not sustainable, and it just wasn't fun after a certain amount of time. First thing I did was I launched a group coaching model in late 2023 called Peak Profits Accelerator. This is a group coaching program where I delivered weekly calls, a community, and access to a training portal. Now, because the program only launched in August of last year, but I was able to start with a bang, I had a waitlist of people ready to go, I had on average throughout the year, if I was to extrapolate it, about 13 people in this program at any given time paying about $2,500 a month to be part of this group coaching program. That helped me generate about $32,000 a month in monthly recurring revenue. So you can extrapolate It was about $32,000 a month over the course of the year. That made up for a pretty significant chunk of my revenue.
One on one relationships
Next part of my business model was having a one-on-one offer. Now, these are more high-ticket offers. What happens when you have a group coaching offer is that some people want to upgrade with you. Some people want more time with you, more access to you. Sometimes people want to come fly to you and come hang out with you in person. So I had a one on one upgrade option available to clients within my group coaching program. Now, if you weren't in my group coaching program, you weren't technically capable. You weren't allowed to upgrade to any programs because these are not even programs that I marketed publicly. And that's the cool thing about just marketing one or two offers is that everyone who's following you, everyone who's connected to you, you can just funnel people into the offer that you really want to grow and scale, which for me was my group coaching model. But when you have enough people into your group coaching model, some people are going to want to upgrade to the next step with you. So I had a series of upgrade options available, higher priced programs, higher value programs at different tiers, whether they were 5,000 a month, 8,000 a month, or some people were paying up to $11,000 a month to work with me in a more one-on-one capacity. So throughout 2023, I had, at any given time, 2-3 people enrolled in a one-on-one mentorship type of program. Average, I was making about $20,000 to $25,000 a month from a handful of one-on-one clients, which equated to another significant portion of my revenue.
Live Events
The third part of my program is retreat ticket sales or live events. Now, these events are typically open to the public at a higher price point than if you were a client. Many of my clients get either a free event or discounted events, depending on the type of event that it is. But I host anywhere from two to four events a year, which range from $2,000 to $10,000 per ticket price of the event, depending on the style of the event. Some of them are two and a half day workshops. Others are eight day event in Peru. We have another eight day event coming up in Bali. So depending on the event, the structure, the intention of the event, which price point is around five or six upwards of $10,000 and on the low end $2,000. So on a given year, I'm averaging between $10,000 and $20,000 a month in ticket sales to future events. So this is where I get paid up front for an event that is three months from now, six months from now, or 12 months from now, which, of course, helps with cash flow now. Now, some clients will ask for payment plans, which is, again, amazing for you as the business owner because you still have monthly recurring revenue coming in. So when you combine the group coaching program revenue with the clients that are in a one on one coaching program, and you combine that with any event or retreat ticket sales, if I was to look at 2023, on average, it was just over $70,000 a month
My story around past jobs
Now, $70,000 a month may seem like a lot of money to you, or you might be much more advanced and think $70,000 is not enough for where you're at in the game. But where I was at in the game was I was in just a couple of years ago, I was in a full-time job making $60,000 per year. So for me, making $60,000 a month 70 grand a month was life-changing and is life-changing money. And it probably is for you as well, right? I've had to do a lot of work on my money belief system of what's possible, what's not possible, growing up in a household where I had a very scarce mindset when it came to money and saving and investing. So trust me, I know what it's like not to grow up with a lot. I also know what it's like to not believe in yourself. I did that for the majority of my life. I spent not believing in myself. But when you hang out with people who want the best for you, people who support you, what happens is you begin to elevate your belief system of what's possible and things that you never dreamed were possible suddenly became or become attainable in the process.
Action items for you
So let's talk about some action items for you. Let's say you wanted to completely simplify your business model in the next 12 months. Here are the three structures that, again, have really served me well. The first thing you can do is launch a group coaching program. This is where you can provide weekly, bi weekly, monthly calls for a group of people who are going to essentially be a mini mastermind with one another, where you show up on your calls and you teach a strategy, you teach a lesson from your content, and then have some time available for Q&A. For example, in my current business model with Inside Peak Profits, we do two calls a week.
So we have strategy calls on Tuesdays, and then we have more implementation and hot seat and open-ended calls on Thursdays, both of which are led by me. So could you take a version of that, implement that into your business model? Could you show up twice a week on Zoom or however you service your clients for a group of people and charge anywhere from one, two, three, upwards of $4,000 per month to be a part of your group coaching program. So how many clients would you need in a one, two, three or 4K a month program to hit your dream number? So the first thing is think about What might be a realistic group coaching program that you could launch? And the three things you have to figure out is number one, where are you going to house the content? So we use Samcart to house our videos, our workbooks, and things like that. That's our version of our training portal. So the first thing you'll need is likely a training portal where you can house your content. The next thing is the actual delivery, meaning how are you going to show up on the calls?
Again, what's the frequency? What's the cadence of your calls? Do you want to show up weekly? You want to show up every two weeks, every three weeks? You want to show up twice a month. There's no wrong answer. It comes down to how do you want to design your business? How do you want to design your lifestyle? And pick a system that works for you. But that's the delivery cadence. And then the third is a community. Where can clients actually interact with with one another? Can they interact online? Do you have a private WhatsApp group? Do you have a Marco Polo group? Do you have a closed Facebook group? Whatever that is for you, you're going to want to create a community container where your clients can interact with one another. The next thing you can dial in for 2024 is your one-on-one program. So think about your group coaching program, and let's just say the price is 2,500 a month. Well, could you create a one-on-one program for people who want more access to you with more deliverables, more. Maybe it's text access to you, maybe it's video to you. Maybe it's an increased frequency in number of calls that they have with you.
Some people are going to want to spend more time with you, and the group coaching model just won't work for them. They're going to want to work with you in a one-on-one capacity. So think about your one-on-one group coaching program. You want to meet with your one-on-one clients hour a week, an hour every two weeks, or two different sessions of 30 minutes and 30 minutes per month. Again, you get so much creative freedom because, again, we're creating this for you. We're creating this for your business model, the way that you want to create your business. So don't think Don't think about your avatar. Don't think about your niche. Ask yourself, if I was to give one-on-one time to somebody, how much time would I need to give? What would I feel good about as a fair value exchange? And from what I've seen in the coaching and consulting space, one-on-one prices, again, can range, but aim to have your one-on-one prices between two, three, four, five times higher than your group coaching program to really dial in some extra monthly recurring revenue. And the third element of our coaching business that you can introduce into your business is having live events, training seminars, workshops, boot camps, or retreats.
Call them what you will, but find a way to bring people together over the course of one day or two day. Teach your best content in person in a live classroom setting. Number one, it's great for your clients to interact with one another in a live event. Number two, it's great for prospects who are on the fence about working with you to come actually experience your magic in person. They get to come meet you. They get to see your vibe, your energy, how you're teaching. Number three, they get to meet other clients of yours
What it ultimately comes down to
So many times when you bring prospects into a live event environment, they get inspired and they get to picture, hey, what would life look like if I was actually in this person's world? So let's say you're selling a $30,000 a year mastermind or a group coaching program or a consulting offer. Well, would somebody who's been thinking about working with you pay $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 to come hang out with you for the weekend where you can deliver a specific result? Absolutely, they will. Could you use that event to then enroll them into your year long program?
Absolutely. That's how people take the next step with So having live events don't have to be stressful. You can do them in your local city. Some of my very first live events would take place over dinner, over the course of a six hour dinner, where at the end of the dinner, I would just find a local restaurant, rent out their private room, host my event in their restaurant, and then make an offer or an invitation to join my year long program. So live events don't have to be fancy. They don't have to be international. They can be in your local city. Find a local restaurant that has a private room and do your first event there. Here's what it ultimately comes down to. I was able to go from zero to $850,000 without spending a lot of money on advertising, without doing marketing activities that I didn't feel good about, and with hosting just a couple of live events throughout the year. And you will never be upset that you introduced a monthly recurring revenue model into your business. So think about how the last 12 months went for you, okay? If you were happy with your revenue, amazing.
Keep doing what you're doing. But if you were unhappy with the sales and the profit and the revenue that you generated last year, well, something has to change going into this year. I'm going to share with you what's working in my business in real-time and try to be as transparent as possible, sharing the exact same data with you. So if you're already in the coaching or consulting space and you're looking to simplify your life this year, comment below with your biggest takeaway.