Inside Caitlin Hall’s Coaching Business
Caitlin Hall is a leadership coach and founder of Ripple Impact, where she helps new and emerging managers lead with clarity, confidence, and resilience. With a background in psychology and project management, she is passionate about supporting people through professional transitions—especially those stepping into their first leadership roles.
Key Insights
The Coaching Skill Is Only Half the Work: Many new coaches fall in love with the craft of coaching—but are surprised by how much non-coaching work is required to run a business. Marketing, sales, admin, client onboarding—all these tasks can be overwhelming, especially without a business background.
Caitlin’s Advice for New Coaches:
Prepare yourself for the business side early.
Look for training, tools, or support systems that simplify operations so you can focus on coaching.
Get support sooner!!
The Interview
Tell me how you became a coach.
I had always been very academic—top of the class, great degree, but it was non-vocational, so I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I fell into something I hated, felt unstretched and unmotivated. My mum suggested coaching—she worked in learning and development—and eventually I said yes. Working with a career coach helped me figure out my strengths and direction. That was the moment I realized this could be my path. I’ve always been interested in psychology but didn’t want to go clinical, so coaching brought it full circle. I trained with Animas in 2020 and have been building my own career coaching business ever since.
Are you coaching early-stage career people?
I was doing a lot of career-change coaching, but I’ve now pivoted to working with people who are becoming or have just become new managers. They're transitioning from high-performing individual contributors to people managers, and it's overwhelming. I support them with stress management, burnout prevention, and leadership skills to help them feel supported as they grow into leadership.
What has been the biggest surprise when it comes to running your own coaching business?
Honestly, the business side.
I fell in love with coaching, but going full-time revealed how much work there is outside of client sessions. I had no background in marketing or sales, so it was a steep learning curve filled with trial and error.
What do you think could have helped prepare you for the ‘business’ side of your coaching business?
More focus on business during coach training would’ve helped—even just an optional module. After about a year of winging it, I invested in a business course that helped me land my first few paid clients. Before that, it was messy.
Do you think a done-for-you setup—like infrastructure, templates, tools—would have helped?
Yes, definitely. Especially something phased, simple, and affordable.
But at the time, just after spending on coach training, I wasn’t ready to go full-time. I also had a big limiting belief about being young and felt I needed to build confidence first.
What have been some of the biggest challenges when it comes to running your own coaching business?
Putting myself out there—being visible online—was really hard. I used to be terrified of making videos or posts. Now I enjoy it, but it took time.
Also, I’m process-driven, so it was hard trusting the chaos of client acquisition. It felt random and unpredictable.
What are the easiest parts of running your business?
Setting boundaries and organising my schedule. That’s always come naturally. Even working from home, I’m good at structuring my day and shutting down when I need to.
What do you think are the three top mistakes that you see new coaches making when they start?
Not getting clear on my niche early enough. I thought I could help everyone, but that made it hard to market myself.
Spending too much time on things outside my strengths—like building a website or a CRM in Notion.
Second-guessing everything instead of trusting a simple, repeatable process.
What's your take on niching? Should new coaches niche early?
If you want to practice coaching, help everyone. But if you're serious about building a business, niche early. It helps with clarity and cuts through the noise. And just because you niche doesn’t mean you can’t work outside it. Think of it like a dartboard—you aim for the bullseye, but you'll still hit other areas.
What advice would you give your novice self?
Get support sooner—business mentoring, coach supervision, tools. Even something small, like a subscription to the right tech tool, can make a big difference.
If you had to start over tomorrow, what would you do differently?
Get clear on who I want to work with and just start talking to people about what I do. I’d also set up a simple process and stick to it instead of overhauling everything all the time. I’ve learned that consistency pays off more than constant change.
