“Those who work the whole day have no time to make money.”
-John D. Rockefeller
Want to know why coaches are more poor than other professions…
Coaches trade time for dollars.
It’s simple math we live with…
Max Time * Max $ Per Time = Max Earning Potential
- To be effective coaching, you can only coach a certain number of athletes at a time. (max dollars)
- To be effective coaching, an athlete requires a minimum weekly amount of training and instruction (varies per sport, but it is in the range of 15–30 hours per week, or more, total work for an athlete aiming to be truly elite). (max time)
- Developing athletes go to school, in most cases, into their 20s. That means the available time you can coach for 9–10 months out of the year falls outside of the school day, limiting your usable time (income). (max time)
- You can only charge ‘so much’ for your available time. It doesn’t matter how good you are, if you over-charge compared to the market, you may be rewarded for a period of time. In most cases, once your pipeline empties or your ‘name’ is challenged by results of other effective coaches (which always happens), that model runs dry and you are left eating ramen noodles (the package kind, not the foodie hipster kind). (max dollars)
Any ‘over stress’ you put on these limits, the system breaks or fails.
Over stress = too many athletes, too little time with athletes and still expecting great results, or charging over market prices, etc.
The only thing that disrupts this, to create a higher income potential, is ‘outside’ money. University contracts (propped up by sponsors and student fees) or professional contracts (propped up by advertisers and attendance).
But, remove that ‘outside’ support and the money goes away.
The money for time system as a coach has a very low business ceiling.
So… that’s it. You’re stuck. Have fun in the next life…
Well.. maybe not.
The same issues once existed for musicians.
Before the phonograph and records and so on, musicians could only play to a limited number of people (there were no loud speakers either). So, they only benefited from the people in front of them, like a coach does. They traded time for the limited number of people who could see them.
The same issues once existed for actors.
Before movies and TV, actors could only perform for a limited number of people, so they only benefited from the people in front of them, like a coach still does.
How much money do successful musicians make today?
How much money do successful actors make today?
A lot more than coaches.
Why is that?
Something called ‘scalability’.
