Lessons I’ve Learned From Turning My Passion into a Coaching Business
Dahlia Dajani, coach to women who either have their own businesses or are thinking about starting one, shared her experiences of how she turned a passion of hers into a coaching business.
Her coaching focuses on working with women within the startup ecosystem, and she offers workshops (as well as coaching) within accelerator programs.
Key Insights
An Essential to Get Started – A well-crafted and easy to deliver welcome pack can be just as powerful in attracting clients, allowing you to focus on building relationships first.
Expanding Your Offerings Creates Stability – Incorporating courses, group programs, or other services can provide additional income streams and help sustain your coaching business long-term.
Building a Consistent Client Base Takes Strategy – While not every potential client will convert, new coaches can create a steady flow of opportunities by diversifying their approach to client acquisition.
Find Where Your Audience Is – A game-changer is finding where your audience is and making sure you are on that platform, speaking directly to them.
The Interview
How did you become a coach?
I had my own business—a co-working space with a small nursery. Through that, I realised I loved working with women entrepreneurs. We would have informal chats about their businesses—who was doing their social media, finances, web design, and coaching. When my business closed due to COVID, I reflected on what I truly enjoyed, and that was mentoring and sharing ideas.
I started joining incubators as a mentor, working with universities and online accelerators, and I loved it. I saw common struggles that entrepreneurs faced and realized there was a real opportunity to help them. When I moved to Dubai, I found a coaching school for in-person training, and after a weekend trial, I fell in love with it. Two years later, I’m certified and have been building my coaching business.
What has surprised you the most about running your own coaching business?
How difficult it is to find clients and retain them. I have many discovery calls where potential clients are excited but then disappear. The inconsistency is challenging.
What is one of the biggest challenges of running your business?
Client acquisition—keeping it consistent. That’s why I want to relaunch my course as an additional revenue stream.
What do you find easy, and what do you find challenging in the operational side of your business?
Creating templates—contracts, welcome packs—those are easy because I can reuse them. The hardest part is pricing. I struggle with charging my clients fairly because they are also small business owners, carefully managing their budgets. But I remind them that investing in themselves will save them money in the long run by building a business that serves them, rather than one that leads to burnout.
What tools do you use to run your business?
Trello for organisation
Calendly for scheduling
Canva for graphics
Google Suite for storage and documents
What’s your marketing strategy?
I don’t have a website yet. Instead, I send a welcome pack and direct people to my LinkedIn profile, which I need to update more. I used to focus on Instagram but realised LinkedIn is a better fit for my audience.
What’s something you would improve in the way you run your business?
I struggle with consistently creating social media content. I tried using an AI post generator, but it didn’t feel authentic and was expensive. I’d love to find a better way to stay consistent with content creation.
What advice would you give to new coaches starting out?
Use online tools to stay organised.
Identify where your ideal clients spend time online and focus your marketing there.
Diversify how you find clients—don’t rely only on direct outreach. Work with universities or agencies that provide coaching opportunities.
Create courses or other offerings with a lower barrier to entry for those who aren’t ready for one-on-one coaching yet.
You don’t need a website right away, but you do need some kind of online presence.
What does an average workday look like for you?
Most of my time is spent on discovery calls, reaching out to people, sending LinkedIn messages, and following up on emails—it’s a constant lead generation cycle.
Dahlia is available as a mentor or coach. Book a free discovery call with her here.
