How to Simplify Your Coaching Business (Lessons from the Inca Trail)
How are you doing with your travel fetish?
I love traveling. Not just being somewhere new. The whole thing. Packing the bag, getting on the plane, waking up in a different city. It's one of my favorite feelings in the world.
But traveling taught me something that completely changed how I run my coaching business.
It taught me how to simplify.
What minimalist packing has to do with your coaching business
If you've ever traveled with me, you know I'm a minimalist packer.
For a 5-day trip, I travel with an 18-inch suitcase. For 2 weeks, I bring a 24-inch. That's it. Clothing, shoes, toiletries, makeup, all of it.
I didn't always pack like this. I learned because of my physical disability. When you can't lug a giant suitcase through an airport, you get really good at deciding what's essential and what isn't.
Here's what minimalist packing actually means.
It's not about paring your belongings down to five pieces and calling it a day. It's about mindfully removing what doesn't serve you and making sure what's left has purpose and value.
The same principle is how you simplify a coaching business.
Why most coaches need this more than another strategy
Most coaches I meet don't have a strategy problem.
They have a clutter problem.
Too many platforms. Too many offers. Too many lead magnets. Too many half-built funnels. Too many courses they bought and never finished. Too many opinions in their head from too many gurus they followed.
You're not stuck because you're not working hard enough.
You're stuck because your business is so complicated, even you don't know what to focus on each day.
Simplifying isn't about doing less. It's about doing the right less. The kind that gives you back your time, your energy, and your clarity.
Here's how I do it.
Step 1: Evaluate
In 2016, I hiked 26 miles of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.
Four days. Steep climbs. Thin air. And on my back, a backpack that I had to carry every step of the way.
I learned very quickly that everything in that bag had a cost. Every extra ounce was something my body had to carry up the mountain.
So I made two lists.
Essentials: water, first aid kit, protein bars.
Non-essentials: extra notebook, second camera lens, a "just in case" jacket I'd never wear.
The non-essentials came out. The essentials stayed. My back thanked me.
You can do this exact exercise with your coaching business right now.
Open a doc. Make two lists.
Essentials: the things actively bringing you clients, energy, and revenue. The platforms you actually use. The offers people are buying. The content channels that drive real engagement.
Non-essentials: the courses you're not finishing. The freebies you built and never promoted. The platforms you signed up for and abandoned. The opt-in funnels with three subscribers. The Pinterest strategy you tried for a week.
Be honest. Most of the things on your non-essential list are weight you've been carrying that hasn't served you in months.
Step 2: Let go
This is the hard part.
Letting go is one of the most challenging lessons in life. Especially in business, where you've invested time and money into things that aren't working.
But here's the thing.
Holding onto something that no longer serves you is like living in two time zones at once. One foot in your current business. One foot in the version of your business that you thought you were going to build a year ago.
It makes it hard to feel whole. It makes it hard to focus. It makes it hard to grow.
Whatever it is (the platform, the offer, the strategy, the niche), it doesn't have to be part of your business forever just because it was part of it once.
Be grateful for what it taught you. Then let it go.
Step 3: Find your purpose
Just as everything in a minimally packed suitcase should be there for a reason, everything in your coaching business should have a purpose.
Purpose gives you direction. It's the first thing you think about when you wake up. It energizes you when you move toward your goals.
For coaches, finding purpose usually answers three questions:
Who am I actually trying to serve? Not who you said you'd serve when you started. Who do you actually want to work with now, with everything you know?
What change am I helping them make? Specifically. "Helping women find their power" is too vague. "Helping certified coaches book their first 5 paying clients" is purpose.
Why does this matter to me? When the going gets hard (and it will), your why is what gets you back up.
When every offer, every post, every email connects back to your purpose, you stop feeling scattered. You start feeling like a coach with a real business.
8 places to simplify in your coaching business
If you want to start cutting weight from your business this week, here are 8 places to look.
Your offers. Cut down to one or two clear offers. Stop trying to have something for everyone.
Your platforms. Pick the one or two where your dream clients actually hang out. Let the rest go.
Your tech stack. If you're using 12 tools to run your business, you can probably consolidate to 5.
Your content channels. Better to do one channel well than five channels half-heartedly.
Your inbox. Unsubscribe from coaches you stopped learning from. Their newsletters are stealing your clarity.
Your beliefs about how this should look. Half the complication in your business is rules someone else gave you that you never questioned.
Your calendar. Block time for the things that actually grow your business. Let the rest take a back seat.
Your input. Stop consuming so many strategies. Pick one. Do it long enough to know if it works.
What happens when you simplify
During the California wildfires in 2020, a colleague of mine rushed home to pack his essentials before evacuating.
It finally hit him how much unnecessary stuff he had been carrying for years. Things he hadn't touched in a decade. Things he didn't actually need. Things that had been quietly weighing him down without him realizing.
Coaching businesses are the same.
Most of us are juggling clients, content, calls, calendars, and a daily list of things to do that never actually ends. Our minds, our calendars, and our hard drives fill up with stuff. Our focus gets pulled away from what we want to do toward what we feel like we have to do.
If you could fit your entire coaching business into a suitcase, you'd be doing it right.
A backpack? Even better.
Simplifying your business is about focusing on what truly matters. Finding better ways to do the things you actually need to do, so you have more room for the work you actually love.
The clients. The coaching. The thing you started this business for in the first place.
Ready to simplify your coaching business and finally focus on what's working?
If you're a coach with too many tabs open, too many half-finished projects, and not enough clarity, I'd love to help. We'll look at what to cut, what to keep, and the simplest next step to make your business feel good to run again.
