#261 Brandon Forbes - How To Build A Successful Coaching Business in 2025 (Full Masterclass)

People are going to trust more . There's less competition . You can get more trust by communicating your values and you can lower the competition by picking a niche .

And I think how it's changing is Everybody's seen the Instagram ads . I run them . We started the boosted post for follower ad thing 2 years ago and it's very quick marketing , kind of just burning and churning through leads . I think people are looking for authenticity , they want to trust people .

Again , the coaching industry , bro , we both know the trust is at an all-time low and the competition is at an all-time high and the only way to stand out , in my opinion , is to have a clear niche to attract people who are like you or who look up to you or want to have your life essentially .

So a niche , value systems like we share similar values and authenticity , so people would rather hear hey , bro , running ads is a risk , scaling your coaching business is a risk . Nothing is guaranteed , there's no big promises , but I can show you exactly what I did to get here .

So I think how it's changing is you're going to see a lot less editing and a lot more just raw , real content , that's long form , where people can get to know you , and I think if you don't take advantage of YouTube and podcasts , people are just going to take your customers .

And I guess for you , what is that USP ? Right , because it's you know , let's say , it's broad Instagram . Someone clicks on your Instagram . How do you think about that ? Because , especially true ads , which I'd love to get really fucking nerdy on , you don't have that attention , right ?

You don't have a ton of time to be able to explain to someone that you do X , y , z , yeah , so the unique selling proposition ?

And they're like are you a busy entrepreneur who's wanting to lose 50 pounds of weight ? Get shredded . If so , give me a follow . It's like , bro , that sucks . Like that offer . Like there's okay , a busy dude . It's like , bro , that sucks that offer . There's Okay , a busy dude . That's almost everyone in America , or half of the population of the world .

So it's like I'll tell you an offer that's crushing right now . It's this guy who's like are you a busy Catholic dude ? So it's like just by adding in one other piece of your value system or another offer . So everybody's coaching people on how to get a job in sales right now , which is fine . I think it's a good offer .

But this guy took a unique approach and he was like are you currently in tech sales and you're wanting to find a career where you can basically uncap your income , work remote if so , blah , blah blah .

don't get mad at people who coach coaches , but this is what the person wanted to do .

Say this in the ad Are you a digital nomad who has or wants to start a coaching business so you can actually afford to travel and live the life you want , going from country to country ? If so , give me a follow here . So it's like that ad is going to do so much better than Are you an online coach stuck between 10k a month ?

If so , so it's like , yeah , I think connecting on the values is so key . I did that on accident . When I first started , I started working with Christian coaches and I did it because I wanted to , but a good byproduct earlier on was they trusted me so much more .

I didn't even mean for it to happen and now we work with everybody , but still a large portion of the people that join are like Dude I saw your faith and I love it and want to be a part .

Come in and seen these people that were aligned with your values . And I interviewed Dr John Demartini last week , who basically has a fucking system for defining your values like an entire checklist , a scorecard , whatever , and that's like your highest priority , which again reflects in the world who you are and attracts the opposite effect .

So basically , if you're an asshole , you're going to bring people in that are an asshole . Now , for someone who's you know again , 10k , 5k a month , they're trying to stay alive . How do you , how the hell do you define your values to create that positioning , to be able to attract the big boys effectively ?

Um , I would say the faster you pick a niche , the faster you start making more money , like for sure . Yeah , because then you get the benefit of Facebook ads who are . Facebook is really really good at targeting , bro , just based on the video alone and the copy of the ad . It knows how to get in front of the right people .

So if you let Facebook do the work , actually creating a smaller sample size that are ideal clients , instead of trying to serve everyone and be a general physician , be a brain doctor and charge more , people are going to trust more . There's less competition . So it's like what I said at the beginning low trust , high competition .

You can get more trust by communicating your values and you can lower the competition by picking a niche .

So , again , I have a podcast , we have a podcast agency to keep it simple , we've got podcast coaching business . So there's like a hybrid model and we've done it organic .

But now we've moved into IG in the past six months with my mate and we've been doing kind of this model at a very low scale because we're still warming up IG , because we've had LinkedIn and YouTube just being the moat of the business . Now I'm still a dumbass when it comes to ads 100% but the ability to spin them up and run them is crazy .

In comparison to what it was like before , it's never been easier . How do you think ? Again , ads are changing right now and how should someone position themselves to be able to 10x their sales , 10x their business , with ads and paid traffic ?

And I spent $12 on ads . So I lost $7 . But I sold something . I was like , oh my gosh , this is amazing . I'm going to be rich . Never could figure it out . And back then the belief in my head was ads are super hard , which maybe they were back then .

And people still believe that that ads are expensive , they're confusing , but really all an ad is , in its simplest form , is just a magnifying glass . So for someone to 10x their business , you actually have to have good messaging , a good sales process , a good offer and know something about what you're doing .

If all that's true and you have a good ad process , then yeah , you can 10x your business just by figuring out your return on ad spend . And let's say it's going to suck but still be scalable . So let's say it's a 3 .

So if you want to 10x your business , let's say you're doing 10k a month and you want to do 100 , then you need to spend 30 grand on ads roughly . If you're getting a 3x return on ad spend and you want to 10x go from 10,000 to 100k , just assume you get a 3x return on that . But nobody's like Dude , I want to go from 10 to 100 in one month .

They're usually like bro , I just want to get to 20 . So then it's like spend your first thousand bucks on ads , 2000 on ads .

We've grown shows to over 100 million views , done over 10 million downloads , generated over $2 million in only the last year alone and we can help you grow and monetize your own podcast . We've had some shows go from absolutely zero . We've had some of the biggest influencers in the world come to us to help and improve their show .

So if you want to learn exactly our podcast Grow a Flywheel and exactly how we can do this for you and completely replicate success , schedule a call right down below myself and we can go through the exact model for you and to grow your podcast this year . You know what's interesting , right ? So I've come from the organic content world almost five years .

When you've done those reps , thinking about how to run an ad is so much easier because you're like , oh , it's a hook , there is copy , there's good production . For the most part , I know you can use your phone or whatever . But it's like if you have the modalities from organic , you can just go into paid and just like , basically have all the components .

I'm not going to say you're going to crush it , obviously , but you have the components . But I think there's this weird thing in the online space that whatever you're doing , the opposite is bad . So if you're doing organic , ads are bad , right , and I hate that mentality .

I hate when something is like looked at a true dot lens , Whereas for me it's about integration , especially five years into it , after getting eating humble pie and getting nailed for fucking four years . There's a component of like let's try integrate everything .

And I want to kind of get your thoughts on how you do organic plus paid , because that seems like to me it's like steroids on top of the steroids on top of the steroids yeah , dude .

For instance , and let's say , on my instagram funnel , just you know to say I'm running an ad to get instagram followers . That's paid . But at the same time , if a reel goes semi-viral and I get followers from the reel , that that's still the top of funnel , so they're very similar .

And then it's like , okay , in the middle of the funnel I'm running a retargeting ad . Hey , I'm looking to help somebody do this . Message me the word scale to learn more . I could just post an Instagram story of the same ad . That's organic . And then the bottom of the funnel . They get through the funnel and then they watch my VSL before the call .

If it was an organic , watch my VSL . So I actually view them as the same . It's like the same thing . Basically , it's just with ads the only pro is that you can pay to scale it and the only con is that you have to pay to scale it .

So it's like it costs money , but it's scalable and organic , it's free , and the only con is it's not scalable , unless you're someone like you probably , who's got it dialed in to where you're like Dude , I could just do two extra podcasts a week and it happens .

But it's like most people with organic at least don't have that mindset , skill or , uh , the discipline , so it's like they're not gonna do the work but , dude , it's funny because it's fucking not free , right , because there's literally the cost .

And I think the more higher level you're playing is like oh , my fucking God , is there just a faster , higher point of leverage way for me to get to this ? Because the podcast is the podcast , but because it's like middle of the funnel , you know you're getting less views .

It's less consumption , it's more about avd and you know , lifetime , uh , consumption , all this kind of stuff . It's kind of like a different metric . You know , when you go really detailed on it , it's like every action has an equal or opposite reaction and most people don't know what the output and outcome variable is for their input .

So they're like I did a podcast and now I'm not making a hundred K a month , it's like . But that wasn't the goal of the podcast , though . Like , that's not like the main goal , right .

And of course there's uh , I heard about this before and who said it , which is like you know , your product or offer should have one major benefit , because all of the other sub benefits they're kind of just . They're like known , for instance , if you lose body fat , you're going to become more confident , you'll tone up , you'll have more charisma .

So you don't need to fucking say that in the headline . There's just one main goal and I think that through the lens of like which vehicle you're using to , but I just think that most people don't think when they're doing this shit right in 2025 .

Am I going to get a challenge funnel , vsl , webinar , what the heck am I going to do ? One funnel away challenge . That's what I'm going to and it's like , bro , the reality is they all work . One of my favorite things to tell people is get a piece of cardboard , write it down . Write down a sentence that says Are you struggling with X ?

For instance , if we wrote down Are you struggling being a good parent ? On a piece of cardboard and walked into a coffee shop , if we stood there long enough , someone would walk up to us and say , bro , I'm struggling , why do you have this sign ? And you could actually close them in the coffee shop .

So it's like there's so many ways to market , right , so you just got to pick what's simple and works for you .

But for me it's usually the Instagram funnel because you can record one simple video press boost and within the first $200 to $500 , book your first call In most cases maybe $1,000 , which is so cheap if we're talking in ads and then scale that thing to $30K to $50K a month because you have a good setting , sales and delivery process .

If those three are good , you can scale almost any funnel . And then the second one is you want to find a funnel that's medium , like level medium , what's something that takes a little bit more time to set up , something like a school group funnel , a VSL funnel running ads to your YouTube channel , something like that .

That's a little bit harder to do , a little bit more expensive to prove if it's going to work and harder to copy . And then you're more established . You've got more cash in the bank , you've got people you're competing against . It's like .

The last one is like find one that's super hard to copy , that takes a ton of testing , that costs a lot of money to implement . So no one else will do it and you'll have an advantage and you'll have a lot of different ways to make money .

But that's the example I teach is like , dude , just start simple , as fast as cheapest way , then get good at it , stick to it for six months to a year , then implement something new and do both . But a lot of people , dude I've seen it time and time again they're doing 50k a month on a VSL funnel , let's say .

And then they see the IG growth funnel and they're like I'm going to turn my VSL off and then I'm going to do the Instagram funnel . It's like , why the heck would you do that ? Keep that going and then layer something on top of it and then kind of build like that it's funny , right , it's almost like a sense of self-sabotage .

So I think it's just interesting for me to view that because , again , we run you not necessarily youtube , well , it is youtube funnel , I guess to money , to credit , but we're creating podcasts on youtube , building that trust , and then on linkedin .

I know it's super like woke and whatnot , but I still use it as , like our main source of content because people are there to buy and be educated and that's worked so well . So for me , to go into ig was actually a big uplift because it's like I need to keep these two things running and keep it dialed in and then add in a third .

And you know that's where we kind of went from six figures a month to trying to get to like multi six figures a month . They're not there yet , but but I just mean we have , like the infrastructure . So it's like I guess it goes back to the point of us scale it , get it better and so on . Now you said the medium level of the game .

How do you think about workshop funnels ? Your videos on it are super awesome . Why do some people crush it and why do some people don't get people even showing up on a workshop funnel ?

. My point here is , if you don't have an audience and you haven't been serving them , a workshop is going to flop . But then I have another client who's a former NFL athlete with 500,000 followers .

He's been serving , serving , serving , making content for years , did a three-day challenge , which is basically the same thing as a workshop , and did 100 grand organic from that challenge . So I think the purpose they serve is to move someone from one stage to the next .

So if they're cold right now , it's to get them to warm , and if somebody's in your audience that's warm , it's to get them on the workshop . So then they become hot and if they're hot , it's to move that percentage of people from hot into purchasing .

So I just think of it as a way that anyone who registers and attends basically just moves a step forward in the buying process . Now that's , if you suck , if you get good , you can convert half of them from cold to hot in those three days . Depending on who's all on the call .

You can convert more , but I just think it's a way to once a quarter , once a month , depending on how much you're spending on ads and how much attention you have to just take time , put it into a workshop . It's great content for repurposing and then you end up signing clients from it .

Do you have an ad running into the workshop as a sign-up ?

So the way I actually started this business was doing a paid three-day challenge . So it was like Yo , are you a Christian online coach struggling with blah , blah , blah ? If so , come to my three-day Kingdom Coach Challenge where I'm going to show you for the next three days how to build your offer , market it and sell it .

And then it was just a Zoom call with three days , but yeah . So obviously the first one might not be the best . You're learning your skill , but the whole goal is it's basically like a VSL . So the intro day one you want to tell people your story so they trust you and can relate to you . You attract the right fits , repel the wrong fits .

Then you want to give them homework and something valuable . So for me , build people's offers and then give them homework to create their unique mechanism or messaging . Day two give them another piece of the puzzle marketing . Day three , another piece sales and then basically , hey , there's two options .

I just showed you , for instance , how to lose 50 pounds in three days by getting your mindset , diet and food in order or workouts in order . You can either do all this yourself or I have this program where we come alongside you to help you implement and then you just pitch a call .

It was because , even just to give a bit of context , we ran a very high ticket . So we're part of our business , we run podcasts , we run their offers on the back end , but we ran a very high ticket . It was a 6K program but it was a straight buy off the workshop .

And my logic with this was I wonder if we were able to just fill up a calendar , it would have been better ? I think it probably would have . I think it probably would have .

I do have a program that's 6,000 bucks , though If you want to buy it , click the link down below to buy it . It's like you're going to get way more conversions if you just book in a call .

So if a workshop's over $2K , at the end you pitch calls and you get a ton like a lot of calls , and then , if it's sub $2K , you could pitch just directly on the call .

That's actually . The logic is that people are like so I'll give you some context it's $2.50 a week , can't sell in time , no marriage certificate needed , and then you can ascend as you like with a discount offer , so of the year . So it's basically like not a zero risk offer , but it's a limitless risk . How do you think about that ?

Increasing sales velocity , increasing the amount you sell versus the call funnel , like ? Have you considered different pricing strategies ? Do you want to know how we book the most amazing guests on our podcast that you're seeing today ?

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Now , if you're not running setters and closers , then sure , weekly is fine . It's actually great , so long as you have a good product , you're attracting the right people that plan to stay .

If you sell just a quick fix , people oftentimes , from what I've seen , just buy your program and then churn After you get under the hood of a lot of the people that I've seen doing weekly pay , it's like bro , your churn rate is 40% , so your average cash collected per client is actually $2,500 .

Versus , if you were just charging and attracting people that can pay high ticket , you could get way more cash collected . But again , it's like what's your offer ? Who are you trying to serve ? What's the goal of the business ?

Because one thing I think that's changing in 25 too is I don't think everybody's going to be trying to build 100k a month business , because what I found out I bet you found this out too money doesn't even make you happy , like honestly , it's like unless you're like called to do this , it's actually adding a bunch of unneeded stress that doesn't even need to be

there . Most people I used to drive Uber and I served at a restaurant Most people would be perfectly happy making $20,000 a month $15,000 , if they loved what they're doing , could travel and save for retirement . So I think a lot more people are going to be going after that goal .

I think you'll see a lot of people actually shutting down their business and just doing like a consulting gig . But for those that are called and feel like dude , I want to build an actual business .

Whereas , like dude , like you know your values , you have a family , your second kid's on the way , you kind of know what you're doing and you've devised your own path . Even I said to you earlier I was like I don't know how the fuck you have children and everything that's so difficult to manage with what you're doing .

But you have built that foundation to be like no , this is my clear line , I know where my lines are , whereas a lot of people are just doing other people's jobs . And I don't know if you're familiar with Matt Shields . I haven't watched the video , but Matt has kind of not really .

He's done a lot of changes with his own life , especially with his fate , quite recently in the past year or two , and he put up a video yesterday about how to escape the online business rat race . That was the whole logic was he was like I finally escaped it . Now he's made nearly eight figures at this point .

But it's a very interesting observation right that you swap one rat race for the next one , and now you're caught in this perpetual loop 100% .

Then it's like , how can I build a high-ticket program that's super expensive , and then it's just like all this stuff that a lot of times I've found is actually just like insecurities inside of people and they're just like looking for that thing that's going to satisfy them .

But I've found , similar to Matt , that like literally nothing does that except for me at least , is like god right dude , that's very interesting .

So you are always kind of serving your people , the people that you sell to you're serving them . So I think you don't need to look for the next business model so that you have an easier life . There's challenges with everything , right ?

So , because we run both an agency model and a coaching business , in my eyes they're very similar in terms of how we approach customers , because customers are people and we want to just be nice to people in general . So , for me , I still get back to people on fucking whatsapp if they message me . I'll send them a voice if they need to .

So it's looking through the lens as to , again , what are your values , how do you want to build this and what are the modalities we need to build a good business so that it feeds our life effectively ? Yeah , that's so true . Let's walk through some of the different components of the mindset side .

So I think , looking across your spectrum of mindset , offer , marketing , sales and team why do you put such a big proponent on the mindset side ?

And it's like a lot of people don't think that they're qualified , they think that they're not worthy , they self-sabotage after they get a little bit of success or actually I'll say this , I think , nine times out of 10 , when someone's stuck in their coaching business , it's literally something that could be solved between their ears , not with a funnel .

You want to obviously do the actions to get to that goal , but it's like you need to first almost visualize it and then do a shit ton of actions . For sure , a lot of people either do both , do none . They either take a ton of action , go in circles , or they visualize something and then they just procrastinate and masturbate on the idea in their brain .

They're not really thinking about it . How do you , how have you thought about that ? Right , because I know you do a lot of internal work on this . What element do you focus on ? Was that from maybe doing a lot of research into the Bible ? How do you think about that ?

So what they do is they try to do what we do , like , oh , I'm going to start a podcast . Somebody listening to this right now could be like I'm going to copy you and start a podcast or I'm going to launch a follower ad . But they don't want to become who we are .

So you have to be first , then do and then you can have , which comes down to an identity issue , where most people don't know who they are , and I believe , for instance , my son Jedediah .

He knows who he is because he knows that he's my son , and I know who he is because I made him right , or he's going to at least grow up and understand that I'm Brandon's son , right , that's my dad , and I think in the same way with God .

It's impossible to know your true identity until you know who made you right , and people are like , well , I don't know if God's real . So then it's like I mean at least that's my belief system is the best way to know who you are is to understand who you are . And then from that place it's literally , bro , like looking into the Bible .

Even people who aren't believers . I'm like dude , just like chat GPT all the verses in this book and see what it says about you . People are like dude , I don't believe the Bible . Then it's like why is it the best selling book ever ? Why does the calendar change when Muhammad died or whatever ? And I'm like it didn't . It changed when Jesus died after death ?

Right , so there's two big , significant things that have at least lived for over 2000 years that are worth looking into . Some of the truths that are in the book you don't have to believe it , but what I've found is it's actually a blueprint to building businesses and your own belief system .

So , yeah , not to go on a tangent there , but I think that's the most important thing , bro , is understanding identity .

But you know , back then you had like the 10 commandments literally being drilled into you in school and I just my logic is like , whether you believe it not , that's just a good way to just live in general , just like be nice , don't cheat on your partner , don't cheat on your neighbor , don't do anything like violent to people .

So at the very least , I think we can all agree it's just like a North Star narrative at the end of the day . So whether you say that , you believe it or not , surely that's just a good way to be .

You can't look at that and think you know what I'm actually going to fuck over my neighbor as a result , like that's just the wrong way to look at anything when you don't need to be like I believe this and now I'm in in this belief system , and I imagine that goes the same with a lot of other religions and also other elements of even spirituality .

The more you look into it . So it's like I just think again , it goes back to these , these hard beliefs that I think that people don't really believe . They were just kind of imprinted it .

It's like here have this belief and oh , okay , now I encapsulate that , but the truth , man , is almost like you look at it yourself yeah , and I think outside of religion , because that could create a box where what I said only applies to that group .

My parents were broke , I'm going to be broke , and it's like those are sentences . All thoughts are sentences . So it's like we say these sentences in our mind and they drop down and we start to believe them , and then it changes our feelings , our actions and our results . You can never change your circumstance just by luck , at least in my belief .

So it's like if your circumstance is $10K a month and you want to get to $100K , the only way you're going to change that result and get to the $100K a month is by changing something up here . Even if a funnel helps you get there , you at least have to change your belief to say I'm stuck at $10K a month , but I'm good enough to make 100 .

And then guess what ? You're going to feel confident enough to launch an ad , you're going to take the right action to spend enough to get to the result .

So it's like many people , it's just a mindset that they can't have it , that their offer isn't good enough , that 100K a month is only for the two guys on the podcast right now and it's like , no , you could do it too . You just have to see what's possible and believe it .

Personally like , she to me was freaking awesome at what she did and I saw how much money she was making and I was like if she can do it , I could do it . And that was her whole motto was like be an example of what's possible . So for us , right now , on this podcast , we're an example to everyone listening of what's possible . So that key , but it never .

That's when I knew it was

possible . But I kept trying , trying , failure , failure , failure , this business , failed agency , failed , all these other things . But what shifted for me was when I applied something that the Bible teaches , which was tithing and offering . So , instead of how can I make $10,000 a month ? I literally remember I was like how can I give away 10 grand a month ?

So I started shifting to being generous and and like wanting to bless people to and give money away , and like how can it be a blessing to other people ? And then I started to make more money . It's the energy you emit right .

away , like you could literally watch your YouTube and build like a 10 million a year business , like it's quite literally that obvious , like you could literally do it , and you also have , like your ads being like you say this word in this position .

So that means that you're able to attract the 200k , the 200k a month , and also just cool fucking people , right , just cool people that open your eyes to other things , not just the money on a screen , equivalent . Yeah , exactly , I want to say a big thank you , man . I really appreciate this . I would love to do a second podcast becomes american next year .

We could sit down for two hours , have a coffee , chill and really get into like the nits and nitty gritty of the components . But , man , big thank you to you .