Dollars and Dumbbells - Profit and Wealth Tips for Online Health and Fitness Coaches · Justin Green, CFP®

158 - The Journey of Starting and Closing Down a Coaching Business w/ Chase Smith

·36 min·2 clips

Chase says he reached a near panic attack in March 2023 and posted into his mentorship group chat for help.

1. Dollars and Dumbbells - Profit and Wealth Tips for Online Health and Fitness Coaches focuses on Chase Smith’s path from nurse to coach and the business mistakes he says followed. 2. Host Justin Green, a Certified Financial Planner, interviews Chase Smith, who says he moved from psych nursing and ER nursing into online health and fitness coaching. 3. The episode asks what happens when a coach grows fast, adds overhead, and then has to rebuild the business around cash flow and roles. 4. Chase says he was almost 400 pounds in 2019, tried many diets and supplements, and lost over 100 pounds after working with coaches. 5. He says that experience led people to ask how he was changing, which pushed him toward nutrition coaching certification in June 2020. 6. Chase describes coaching as a side gig at first, with clients coming in casually and little pressure to build a formal business. 7. He says April 2022 was the turning point when a coaching conference and several hard days in ER nursing made full-time coaching feel possible. 8. Chase says his coaching revenue was around eight thousand dollars in strong months, with some months in the three to four thousand dollar range. 9. He says one early stretch produced about fifteen thousand dollars across two months, helped by paid-in-full clients. 10. Chase says he spent money too freely for a business with volatile income and did not treat early revenue as if lean months were coming. 11. He says hiring an assistant coach before the business was stable created pressure because he had to choose between keeping the roster full and paying bills. 12. Chase says the assistant coach also had other work, but the business still could not support the arrangement when his own revenue dropped. 13. He says he also took on debt for a mentorship investment that added financial pressure before he had proven consistent monthly revenue. 14. Chase says a lower-ticket one-on-one mentor had helped him more than the larger program, and he wishes he had stayed at that level longer. 15. He says the biggest mistake was leaving nursing too soon, before building a larger nest egg and a more predictable lead flow. 16. Chase says that fear of looking like he had failed as a nurse kept him from returning to nursing for a while, even as business stress rose. 17. The tone is candid and reflective, with Justin Green pressing on the numbers and Chase answering directly about the bad months and debt. 18. The format stays interview-based and practical, with extended back-and-forth about revenue, staffing, mentorship, and the transition to partnership. 19. Coaches thinking about hiring, debt, or joining forces with another coach would get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a polished success story without business mistakes will probably skip it.

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