Why 'Pay on Results' Agencies Don't Work for Online Coaches

"Outsourcing marketing is like outsourcing sex... Marketing is the sex of business. It's the most pleasurable, most fun part of running your own business. In marriage, you have sex and the by-product is babies. In business, marketing brings new customers." - Russell Brunson

One question we often hear about our system is: "If it works so well, why not just get me the clients first and I'll pay later?" It's a reasonable question, and what you're looking for does exist in the world - it's called the agency model.

The Agency Model: What It Actually Costs

Lots of companies will offer to run the ads for you, give you fresh leads daily, provide fancy reports, and schedule calls with your account manager to discuss those fancy reports. Sounds great, right?

Here's the problem: the good ones charge between £3,000 and £10,000 per month. And it's still on you to coach those clients at the end of the day. When you stop paying them, they withdraw the ads from your account, block off all your funnels, and you've got nothing. You don't have a business to run once you stop paying them.

The Real Problem with the 'Pay on Results' Mindset

The issue isn't so much that agencies don't work. If you want to spend that kind of money, they'll get you leads. The problem is the mindset that asks this question - it usually comes from someone who doesn't want to run their business.

They feel that maybe they're above speaking to leads or that they shouldn't have to be running ads. At the end of the day, if you don't want to deal with any of the operations, marketing, and sales, then you might be better off just joining someone else's team and working as a coach under them.

Why Agencies Require £20k+ Monthly Revenue

There are two types of agencies we've looked into:

The stipulation for companies who use their own ad spend is that you have to have a proven, tested, converting funnel and business. It's the same as Dragon's Den - the dragons get excited about ideas, but they don't invest because of the idea. They invest because of the person.

The magic scenario where someone will take anyone off the street with no track record, no evidence of work, no evidence of success, and just build a business for them doesn't exist. They're taking on all the risk, which is why most agencies require you to be making £20k a month already.

Wanting Someone to Lift the Weights for You

You'd see exactly the same thing with your fitness clients. The more that somebody wants done for them, the less they're willing to do by definition, and the less invested they are in turning up and doing the work.

It's the kind of client who inquires and says, "I want custom meal plans and I want someone to..." - if they could and if it didn't seem ridiculous, they would say "I want someone to come and lift the weights for me."

They're just half in. They're playing with the idea rather than being interested in actually doing it.

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Why Hiring a Done-For-You-Agency won't work for you:

There are a couple of mindset blocks people have with this:

If you don't want to speak to leads, ask yourself: once they become a client, does anything magical happen at that point? Are you going to be willing to speak to clients? If not, is coaching the right thing for you? Coaching is all about engaging in relationships with your clients.

Building Your Own Distribution vs. Renting Someone Else's

You want to be able to build your OWN distribution. That's part of the reason you might want to leave the gym - currently, you pay rent to a gym so you can operate with "personal trainer" written on your back. You've got this flow of leads, but you're purely dependent on being in that gym and having that footfall traffic.

Maybe you want more control over:

Imagine you've been given a business that's doing £30k a month, you ditch everything else, put your entire life as being reliant on that, and then in a year's time you've got no idea how it's running or working. You're coaching clients but you don't understand how they got there. If you lost guidance today, you wouldn't have a process to get more clients back.

That sounds pretty stressful - to not have any control whatsoever.

When Should You Hire an Agency?

The agency model is not our recommendation, but if you're earning £20k a month already, you have a validated offer, and you want to hand over all the mechanics of your business - go ahead.

The Bottom Line

We've tried agencies, and it's been far more profitable and bulletproof to build the skillset yourself. Plus, you keep 100% of your profits.

Running any online business requires you to turn up and do the work. If you're not willing to do that, maybe it's time to ask yourself if running an online coaching business is really what you want, or if there are more suitable options for what you're looking for.

Ready to build your own marketing skills instead of relying on agencies? Learn the exact system we used to grow our fitness coaching business without paying agency fees or giving up control of our marketing.