7 Things Keeping You Under $10K/Month 2025 (Online Coaches)
In this video, Maciek Hormacki delivers a step‑by‑step guide for online fitness coaches who struggle to convert followers into paying clients. He frames the problem as seven common mistakes that keep coaches stuck below $10,000 a month and provides concrete, actionable fixes. The first mistake is a lack of clear avatar targeting; he advises splitting content 50/50 between broad awareness pieces and highly specific conversion pieces aimed at a defined niche (e.g., busy corporate women, busy moms). The second mistake is an unoptimized Instagram bio; he outlines a three‑line bio formula (an "I help" statement, a direct DM call‑to‑action, and a link to a Typeform application) and supplies the exact questions to qualify leads. The third mistake is not sharing personal story; he stresses authentic storytelling to build likability and trust. The fourth mistake is insufficient Instagram Stories; he recommends posting at least two daily stories, one of which is a talking story, to humanize the coach. The fifth mistake is a lack of social proof; he suggests daily client‑result posts, screenshots, testimonials, and regular updates even for a small client base. The sixth mistake is boring video hooks; he provides two hook formulas—negative‑hook ("Don’t do X unless you want Y") and exaggerated‑positivity hook ("I lost 27 lb in 16 weeks by doing Z")—to capture attention. The seventh mistake is offering free content that isn’t genuinely valuable; he defines value as content that can be applied within 24 hours and explains why accountability and personal connection still drive paid sales. The video ends with a funnel plug to his own coaching‑business service and a call for comments, likes, and subscriptions.
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Do you want more clients? Yeah, I thought so. The truth is that most of you guys don't have a subject matter problem. You're talking about the right stuff. You know your stuff. You're a fitness coach, right? What the problem is, is you are boring while you are doing it. So in this video, I'll break down the 7 things that you can implement today to start seeing insane results from your content. You're going to start signing a lot more clients. Now, if you don't know who I am, my name is Maciek Hormacki, and I'm on a mission to help online fitness coaches systemize their businesses so they can enjoy more freedom and make getting new clients easy. So let's jump straight in. Number 1, are you speaking to your avatar or are you speaking to everybody? If you are speaking to everybody, you are speaking to nobody. You're this little guy here. I know you can train everybody, but here's how much a general doctor makes in the US and how much a surgeon makes in the US, okay? So you want to be the surgeon of your niche, right? You want to be the expert in your niche so you can charge a lot more and you also make the content creation process a lot simpler for you because you know exactly who you are speaking to, right? You can focus on their specific pain points. Now, 50% of your content should be specific to your avatar and the other 50% should be to the wider audience. Why? Because we are going to be attracting eyeballs to your page with the wider audience, and then we are going to be converting your avatar into clients. So first we have the awareness content, and this can be opinions on life, relationships, recipes, general workout plans, stuff everyone can use.
I will never sacrifice my soul for riches. I will never sacrifice my family for fame. I will never compromise who I am for the approval of other people. You can laugh at me and talk behind my back. I've got peace, so I don't need your approval and I don't need your applause. I don't live for the approval of man. I live for the glory of God.
Boom! Beautiful awareness piece of content. As you can see, it got a lot of views, 6.5 million, a lot higher than the trends average. And this will help you get a lot of eyeballs to your page. Right. But as I said, viewers and followers are pointless if you are not making money from them. That's the entire point of this video. So to be able to get clients, we need the second type of content, AKA the conversion content, which is specific value for a specific avatar. Here are 3, 3 meals every corporate woman should eat to go from a size 18 to an 8 in under 12 months. These were staples in Danielle's meal plan that helped her lose over 30 pounds in 6 months and reverse her pre-diabetic stat. I'll give you 10 seconds. Who's the ideal avatar here? Yes, busy corporate woman. But there's a lot more examples. 3 tips for busy moms with a busy schedule on how they can lose fat. So busy moms have a busy schedule. That's why you can make videos about how to work out when, when you have a busy schedule, right? Or the best workout split for busy moms, home version, because they don't have time to go to the gym. This way you tailor the content to the specific avatar, right? Now, if you work with busy corporate woman, maybe you can give them some snacks they can bring to work. Because they're all the time at work, right? You need to be giving specific value for a specific avatar. Reason number 2 you're not making money: is your bio optimized, or do you have a link tree with 50 links? Okay, and you are— a lot of you guys are guilty of this. When you give people too many options, they're going to get overwhelmed and choose— guess what? Nothing. We call this the choice overload. You can Google that, and it's a real thing, right? If you give people too many options, they're going to choose nothing. It's like if you go to the gym as a beginner and you don't have any plan, Like, you're so confused, right? There's so many different machines. But when somebody gives you— that's why people hire personal trainers, right? Because you give them a specific plan and they know exactly what to do. Now, if you give people 50 links in your bio, what do you think the chances that they will actually find the online coaching, apply for coaching, right? It's slim to none, right? So you want to give one specific option. Cool. So how do I optimize my bio? First things first, the first line should be an "I help" statement. I help niche achieve desired result with without things they don't want. For example, Paul here, I help moms 30+ lose fat and get strong for their kids. As you can see, like a bigger desired result without BS fat diets, right? Because people don't like restrictive diets. Another example, I help busy moms lose stubborn weight without spending hours in the gym. Second line, call to action. And a lot of you guys don't have this in your bio and it will make a huge difference for you. DM keyword for more info. For example, DM Rebuild for more info, or you can give more context, DM Rebuild to drop the mom boot, right? If you work with busy moms, for example. And this way, a lot of people are going to be DMing you this straight from your bio. So it's a no-brainer, right? Worst case, you get a few applications per week. Oh, what am I gonna do? I have too many clients. The last line in your bio should be the coaching application link. You can, for example, use Typeform. This is the best platform. Apply for coaching with a finger down or with like an arrow pointing down. Now you can flex in your bio a bit if you have more space, but these are the 3 staples. You need these 3 lines. If you have a bit more characters left, You can flex a bit about your, whatever you have, you know, you're an IFBB pro, whatever. But these are the staples you need to have to optimize your bio for maximum conversions. These are the questions to ask in your Typeform and your coaching application form. What's your full name? What is your Instagram social media handle name? What's your number one fitness goal right now? What would you say is the biggest thing holding you back from achieving your goal? How prepared are you financially, physically, and emotionally to invest in transforming your life right now? This question is super important because you can immediately disqualify, you know, people that are going to just waste your time and they're just looking for free advice. And you can qualify the people that actually have money. And what's the best number and email to reach you at so you can reach out to them? And you can keep that information in the backend of your company as well. It's always helpful. You can then send them like a newsletter, et cetera, et cetera. So it's just good to have that information right now. Every single time you see people filling this form, you want to reach out to them on Instagram and just say, hey, thanks so much for inquiring about coaching. Are you on a fitness journey right now or are you looking to get one started? For example, and then start the conversation and book them on a consultation call ASAP because remember, they are very warm, so they will be very submissive to book a call with you. Reason number 3 why you're not booking calls. Are you sharing your story enough? Okay, people need to know, like, and trust you before they buy from you. You've probably heard it hundreds of times, but you are still forgetting about some of these things. People don't buy coaching, they buy coaches, okay? They need to like you as a person. So without sharing your past, your struggles, your personality, you're just a fucking robot, right? And right now you can see people like AI creators on Instagram. When you scroll, you don't even know who's real and who's not. Man, like if you don't share your personality, you're just another coach. I don't even know if you're a human or if you're a robot. You need to show your personality and show that you're human, right? So being recognizable for your personality and story is becoming increasingly important, as I said, because there's so many coaches entering the market. The coaching industry is growing by about 15-20% each year, which means it's becoming more and more important to lock in now and get this done now. Show the real you. Talk to your social media like they are your friends.
And so I'm on my way to speak at a conference this morning. Brought the fam. There's Eliza, Cash, Zayden, and Taylor. So we're— yeah, we're super excited speaking at Ruslan's Bless God conference.
Hey, but this is not even fitness related. How will that make me make more money for my coaching business? Like, it will, because people start to get to know you as a person. They can start to vibe with you, with who you are as a person. There's so many coaches out there So they will go to the coach with more authority in the space that has millions of followers. If unless they start liking you as a person and then they go to you. But Maciej, how do I add personality to my videos? That's a great fucking question. How do you add personality to dating, to friendships, to your relationship with your family? You just are. You just are with your friends. No trying. That's why they are your friends. That's why people are going to start liking you as a person on your social media as well. Because you are just yourself. So the most actionable step I can give you here is create a pinned post about your story. So it can be, allow me to reintroduce myself, or I know what it's like to struggle with your body, okay? When someone lands on your page, they feel like you understand them and their struggles. So you want to go over, I grew up as a chubby kid in the Netherlands, right? Or I struggled with depression and anxiety my whole life, you know? No matter how much weight I lost, I never felt confident. This, all of these things your audience can resonate with. I never felt good in my clothes and I never felt happy with how I looked. Go deep on your feelings during the transformation. Okay, so I've done it all, you know, I cut out carbs, I lost pounds and getting it all back, you know, I feel frustrated and depressed. They'll think you understand them. That's the first thing. Second, you have the results they want because you transformed, you have a great body right now. And the third logical conclusion is that like you can help them get the same results. So that's why they're going to hire you. The reason number 4 why you're not making money, are you posting enough Instagram stories? Okay, you need to be active on your stories daily for people to know you and like you. At least 2 stories from your daily life. Show the gym, you know, meal prep, what you are doing. Show what you're doing as a human. Okay, show you living the healthy lifestyle so people get inspired by watching your stories. Okay, so you in the gym, maybe woke up, you know, 4:30 this morning and maybe, you know, some motivation. You are reading this and that book. Just show what you're passionate about so they can start vibing with you as a person. So that's 2 stories, and at least one of them should be a talking story so people can see that you're actually a human, okay? So for example, you can do a Q&A, or you can just talk to the camera about what you're doing throughout the day. So, is keto sustainable long-term? And then you're walking around, he's not scripted, he's just walking around the city, he just pulled out his phone. And then like, people have conversations on the street, right? With friends. So that's why people on your social media are going to start treating you as their friend Okay, show your food, again, what you're doing throughout the day, mindset shifts or breakthroughs, things happening in your life so they can start getting to know you, right? You should— it should be to the point where if you're sick, they DM you like, hey, you haven't been posting on stories for 2 days because, like, is everything okay? That— this is the relationship you want to build. Reason number 5 you're not making money: are you sharing enough client results? This one is huge, and most people are guilty of this. Okay, you need to share social proof on stories every day. But I don't want to seem salesy. Let me ask you a quick question. Would you rather be broke because you're afraid of user 1.45's opinion? The people complaining from you would not buy anyway, so why do you care so much about their opinion? And proof is not just before and afters, because yes, I agree, it can get boring, but you can screenshot messages from your clients, like Trainerize graphs, testimonials, Obviously before and afters, video testimonials. There's so many different ways of showing social proof. Now, if you don't have many clients, simply update the photo of the same client every week. Okay? If you just have a few clients, obviously you don't have a bunch of social proof, so just update it every week and you'll build the client base from there. Okay? You need at least 2 to 3 posts per week on your feed. I'm talking social proof posts per week. Again, not just before and afters.
This is Mary, a busy full-time mom who loves to travel. And this is Mary, a busy full-time mom who loves to travel, but 20 pounds lighter. Before joining my program, Mary found it extremely hard to stay active with her busy schedule. And not to mention, with a full-time job and being a full-time mom, her time was very, very, very thin. But that all changed when we did these 3 things. First, we talked—
and you're going over the tips, right? So value video mentioning your client who lost weight, right? This client, this is what the client looked like before working with me, and this is what they look like right now. And here's what's changed, right? And you want to go over the transformation. At the end, you can say, if you want the same results like my client Mike, comment the word coach and I'll reach out to you to see if I can help, okay? And now you're getting application for your coaching. A few more examples, the best food to eat that I taught Sarah who lost 20 pounds. My client Sarah lost 20 pounds, let's check out her story. And you play like a video testimonial from her. You can do a before and after carousel about their transformation, walk through the transformation from where she started to versus where she is now and all the struggles that she went through. We talked about this before that in order for people to want to work with you, They need to know you, like you, and trust you, right? And posting a bunch of proof will cover the trust aspect, right? One of the 33% of the reasons why somebody would buy from you will be covered because of this. And most of you guys are not sharing enough of this, and that's why you're not signing as many clients as you should be, okay? And as you can if you just start doing that. So start from today. Reason number 6 why you're not making money: are you boring? Are you boring? You can be the most knowledgeable person, but if people don't last 2 seconds on your videos, there's no point. Most people are talking about the right stuff, right? You are great at fitness, but you're just boring. And of course, you know that hooks are important, but what are the types of hooks that you can use in your videos so people watch until the end? First, the negative hook. Stop doing squats like this unless you want to ruin your back. Another example: Don't ever grab extra lean ground bison top sirloin steak. Flank steak unless you want the best red meat sources to help you lose your belly fat. And that was actually a good one, right? Because he switched from the negative hook to a positive statement. So the key takeaway here is to take all your how-to videos, not here is the best types of meat to eat if you want to lose fat. This is the— don't ever eat this, this, and this unless you want to lose fat. Okay, so this is like a switch, as you can see. So turn your how-to videos and turn them into don't-do videos. Hook number 2: exaggerated positivity. For example, this is how I went from this to this in 3 easy steps, in 3 lazy ways. Did you know I lost 27 pounds in 16 weeks and I ate Biscoff every single day? Now I know what you're thinking. And people are like, wow, I want to eat Biscoff every single day, right? And she lost this much weight in this time frame. I want to get the same results. And that's why they're going to watch, right? So these are the 2 easiest types of hooks. And I would definitely use the first one, the negative hook. It's super easy. Just switch every single video about what to do into what not to do. And last but not least, number 7, why you're not making money. Is your content genuinely valuable? Is your free content genuinely valuable? And a lot of people get this wrong. Like, what does valuable mean? Well, here's the exact definition. Value means people could get results without hiring you. Okay. Because everyone can go to ChatGPT and create 3 tips for fat loss. And people are like, well, if I give valuable stuff for free, then why would they hire me? Well, obviously because of the accountability part, because everyone can go to ChatGPT and create free tips for fat loss, right? ChatGPT is very accessible right now, and most people know that they can just generate a meal plan if they give all the right macros. It can calculate macros for you, give you a meal plan, a training plan, and people could get results with it, right? Why would they hire you? Because they like you as a person, because of the steps that you applied earlier. Second, because they know that you share valuable information in your free content. So if they feel like Well, if this guy shares this for free, I wonder what their paid stuff must be, right? And that's why they want to hire you. And third, because of the accountability aspect. So the actual, you know, what your program contains as far as the workout split, people don't really need that because they can just get it for free. They need the accountability, right? And they need to like you and know you as a person. Share genuine value people can implement within 24 hours. This is a great rule of thumb when you think about whether this video idea is good. Think, would somebody be able to actually apply it within 24 hours? If not, just don't post it. And also, it's valuable if you feel a bit nervous, you know, you feel this feeling in your stomach, you know, before posting this. Okay. Because they could, well, they could do it themselves. You know, now, now this, my audience could actually lose weight themselves. This is the right feeling to feel. That means you should actually post it. Again, they'll hire you because they need accountability. Do these things and I fucking guarantee you, you'll make money. Okay, so that's that for this video. Now, if you struggle to get clients or keep clients, or cannot for the life of you figure out how to grow your own fitness coaching business, feel free to check the first link in the description. It's not a free webinar or a free case study or whatever, uh, it's a video of me explaining how my company can help you solve the problem, right? And it's a funnel designed to sell you something. I'm not going to pretend it's not. You don't have to click it if you don't want to. Now, that's it for this video. If you, again, if you have any questions about online fitness coaching business, any processes, Whatever questions you have, drop them in the comments. Make sure to like the video if you, if you liked it, and, and also subscribe for more content that keeps you engaged until the end. Thanks so much for watching this video and have an amazing day, and I'll see you in the next one.
