The flywheel effect in business refers to the phenomenon where initial efforts accumulate momentum over time, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that drives significant growth.

Amazon is a great example of this effect.

Amazon has a distinctive business structure and growth strategy that has allowed it to dominate nearly 40% of the US e-commerce market.

They achieved this rapid growth with the Amazon flywheel effect. Here’s how it works:

• More sellers on Amazon lead to an increased product range on the platform.
• Increased product range attracts more customers.
• More customer purchases result in more reviews, boosting buyer confidence.
• Boosted buyer confidence attracts even more sellers, often lowering prices.

As you can see in the above image, this cycle repeats, reinforcing itself and driving further growth.

This ongoing, self-reinforcing cycle shows the flywheel effect, where each part strengthens the others, leading to big growth.

How the coaching business flywheel spins?

As I told you before, the Flywheel model operates on one principle: one business outcome feeds the next outcome, creating a continuous cycle.

Similarly, when it comes to the coaching business, you have 4 different outcomes:

1. Lead generation
2. Student experience
3. Transformations
4. Documenting success stories

So, all these different outcomes are interconnected.

• Consistent lead generation ensures a steady stream of new students entering the coaching program.
• An enjoyable student experience keeps students engaged and motivated.
• Excellent instructional design and curriculum facilitate meaningful transformations for students.
• Meaningful transformations lead to positive testimonials and success stories.
• Positive testimonials and success stories serve as powerful marketing tools to attract more leads.

💡 Because in a coaching business, you are not a course creator. You’re a coach, promising tangible transformations for the students.

So, your student experience leads to transformations.

Once students achieve good to great transformations, you need a mechanism for documenting them as success stories to obtain testimonials.

Later on, you can use these success stories as marketing materials to fuel your lead generation mechanisms.

Here’s how it works:

• Publish success stories: You can publish your success stories on your website as YouTube videos or interviews to attract more leads to your coaching business.
• Experience: They would have extensive experience and get good transformations, and this cycle would repeat.
• Transformation: The main fuel for this flywheel business to run is the transformations in your coaching business. The more impactful the transformations, the faster the flywheel rotates.

What you need to focus on to make the flywheel spin? (as a coach)

Creating content

In the business world, you need to find ways to maximize the impact of minimal effort.

Not all leverages are created equal, and the best form of leverage is permissionless leverage, as explained by Naval Ravikant.

The best forms of permissionless leverage are code and media, that is, the content you create online.

👉 You not only need to create content, but also document success stories and publish them on various social media channels, including YouTube, so that they can be effective in generating leads.

Updating courses

You need to also focus on updating your courses as a coach.

Your job is to hold as many sessions with your students as possible. Identify all the bottlenecks that they are facing, the things that are preventing them from getting results. Document them, and then update your course so that they will get results faster.

Your courses need to be easy to update.

Here are some tips for you to consider for making your course easy to update:

1. Modular design:Design your courses for easy updates, where one atomic idea is explained in one video.
2. Brief videos: Videos should be short, and you need to focus on evergreen timeless principles, separating them from tactical videos. If you want to update your course and make your course evergreen check out my blogs.
3. Recognizing patterns: Interact with your students in your community, identify the recurring patterns in their coaching journey, and note the strategic places where you can update your courses.

👉 After all, the value of your program and courses is determined by its ability to drive outcomes for your coaching customers with less friction, time delay, and sacrifice. The more results you get, the faster the flywheel spins!

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO FOCUS ON = GET RESULTS FOR THE STUDENTS

Getting results (building system)

Apart from creating content and updating courses, you need to focus on getting results for your students.

Here’s how:

• Form community: When people enter your coaching funnel, create a community of these individuals using the best online community platforms and organize them into groups.
• Build relations among members: Build strong bonds within the members of the groups to make members feel like they are part of a family, motivating them to engage with the community every day. It’s the foundational fabric, that can make or break!
• Accountability: Group them in the form of triads or accountability groups to help them complete the weekly milestones. Each member of the community will hold each other accountable, reducing the time to achieve results.
• Assign leaders: Assign a leader to each accountability group. Leaders can report to you regarding the progress of their group in a specific format, keeping you informed about the entire community’s progress. You can, perhaps, hold mastermind calls with them.

In essence, getting results and transformations for the student should be the north star in a coaching flywheel. That’s what keeps the flywheel running.