Growing a Health Coaching Business: The Lessons That Have Helped Me Grow My Business
By Amanda Balcombe – HCANZA Health Coach of the Year 2025 & Health & Mental Fitness Coach, Still Wellness.
If you’re anything like me, growing your health coaching business has never been about the awards or accolades. We start because we genuinely want to help people and make a difference in their lives.
That being said, to now be recognised as the HCANZA Health Coach of the Year 2025, it’s an honour I’m incredibly grateful for, and one that represents something bigger. More than just being a personal milestone, I want it to shine a light on what’s possible when health coaches lead with purpose, courage and collaboration.
I also hope that my story can serve as a reminder of the ability we have as coaches to create meaningful change in our communities, elevating this emerging profession as a whole, one client, one workplace, and one collaboration at a time.
The Why Behind Still Wellness
After a successful 17-year career as a high-performing Financial Adviser, I experienced burnout in 2021, followed by a cancer diagnosis. Those two experiences changed everything.
At 48, I retrained with PREKURE and launched Still Wellness, to support professional women like me, who were silently struggling with stress and burnout. I knew the transformation I wanted to help them create, but I had no idea how to package it, market it or find the right people.
When I began coaching in regional NSW, I never would have imagined where this work would lead: supporting professionals locally and across Australia, hosting events and collaborating with organisations in New Zealand.
Growing a health coaching business in a field that’s still emerging hasn’t been easy or linear — and I’m still learning every day. However, when I look back, I can see those key decisions and moments that helped me grow Still Wellness to what it is today. They weren’t part of a perfectly mapped-out business plan, but simply small, ‘next right’ steps that aligned with my values, plenty of brave conversations and saying yes when it felt right, even when those yes’s were wildly out of my comfort zone.
Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been building your coaching business for a while, growth never requires having it all figured out—it simply asks for the next brave step. What I’m about to share may reinforce what you’re already doing or offer a fresh perspective as you continue to shape and strengthen your business.
5 things that have helped me grow my coaching business
Make Connection Your Strategy
Early on, I invested in a business mentor who gave me a simple piece of advice: Schedule three coffee dates every week. One with someone you already know. One with someone you want to collaborate with. One with someone completely new.
Those conversations became the heart of my business and, honestly, have worked better than any traditional marketing tactic.
Many of those conversations grew into partnerships with forward-thinking organisations, fellow health coaches and women-led businesses. Together, we co-designed programs, delivered group coaching initiatives and reached people across Australia and New Zealand in ways I never could have done alone (or imagined when I first started!)
Connection is often where momentum begins, it certainly has been in my experience. So, focus on real-life conversations, and follow what feels aligned. Collaboration and making connections will grow your impact and your business far faster than trying to do it all on your own in isolation.
Visibility is key for growth
Another thing I learnt early on is the value of a personal brand and the importance of being visible. That meant embracing social media, which was something I had never done before and found terrifying. But I quickly learned that visibility isn’t about self-promotion. It’s about sharing your mission, your message, and the impact of coaching in a way that feels natural and authentic to you.
For me, visibility expanded far beyond posting online. In 2023 and 2024, I hosted two Elevate Your Impact breakfast events in Tamworth, bringing together over 180 women from my regional community. I partnered with two Sydney-based female founders and created space for honest conversations about wellbeing, leadership and growth.
Those events raised awareness of health coaching, connected me to my ideal clients, strengthened my confidence and reminded me of the magic that happens when women collaborate.
You can’t help people if they don’t know about you or how you can help them. You don’t have to be everywhere. Choose where you want to show up and commit to it. Visibility grows when you share your work consistently in the spaces that feel aligned, whether that’s LinkedIn, networking events or speaking in your local community.
Position Yourself Within the Health Ecosystem
A key part of my business strategy in the beginning was to deliver in-person coaching from a local Allied Health Hub. By working alongside exercise physiologists and physiotherapists, health coaching naturally became part of a trusted care team. This cross-referral model not only strengthened my professional credibility but also provided clients with an integrated, wraparound approach to their wellbeing, rather than piecing together support in isolation.
This partnership approach has been central to my growth. Over the past two years, flexible delivery across both virtual and in-person settings has enabled me to support women and professionals in Tamworth, Australia, and New Zealand.
Look for opportunities to connect with existing healthcare professionals on a local level, whether in person (such as having an office space) or through partnerships and collaborations.
Let Your Niche Evolve and Embrace Innovation
Working in a regional area, I quickly saw how stretched, fatigued, and burnt out many healthcare workers were. Having experienced burnout myself, I understood how vital early support and intervention could be. Partnering with the Primary Health Network and the local hospital gave me the opportunity to design and deliver programs for allied health and nursing teams—helping to address a critical gap in their wellbeing support.
Your niche isn’t something you always decide in advance. Often, it reveals itself through the people you meet, the gaps you notice and the patterns that keep appearing in conversations. When you pay attention, new opportunities show themselves.
That openness also led me to embrace innovation and technology, something I can leverage as a point of difference as a health coach. I’ve worked with Recalibrate NZ to co-deliver innovative programs for leaders and teams in demanding environments where we’ve integrated personalised coaching with wearable technology taking a data led approach.
While you should always remain true to your values as a coach, I believe it’s essential to stay curious and open to evolving. Your why will remain, but being open to the how can not only help grow your health coaching business, it can expand your impact.
Use Group Coaching and a Portfolio of Services to Grow Your Impact
Group coaching has become one of the most scalable and effective parts of my business. Working with organisations such as the Primary Health Network, NSW Health, and Recalibrate NZ to create custom group programs has shown me the power of supporting teams, not just individuals.
Over time, what began as one-on-one coaching expanded into a broader suite of services, including group programs, workplace wellbeing sessions, speaking opportunities, and working in coach at PREKURE. A multi-stream model has enabled me to support individuals and organisations while also maintaining my business’s financial sustainability.
What I’m sharing here is simply what my business grew into overtime. Start with one offering you can deliver well, then let the rest unfold as your confidence grows. As your skills deepen and your niche becomes clearer, you’ll naturally see opportunities to expand and help more people.
A Final Thought…
Your work, your story, and your lived experience are all valuable. Whatever your niche, there’s space for you and people who need exactly what you bring.
I believe deeply in our profession because I’ve seen its ability to change lives, families, workplaces and communities. Not just through my work, but through other coaches I’ve worked with. The health coaching industry grows stronger every time one of us shares what we’ve learned, supports another coach or collaborates in a way that lifts us all.
If one idea or insight here helps you feel braver, clearer or more hopeful about growing your health coaching business, then this conversation, has been worth it.
Here’s to more connection, more collaboration, and more courageous steps forward…. from one health coach to another.
To learn more about approved training programs, visit HCANZA’s directory
To find a coach https://hcanza.org/find-a-coach/
About the Author
Amanda Balcombe
Amanda Balcombe is a Certified Health and Mental Fitness coach with a focus on stress management, burnout and mental wellbeing. A former award-winning Financial Adviser, Amanda experienced burnout in 2021. She now works with professionals and teams in demanding careers to build sustainable success without burnout. Connect with Amanda at Still Wellness or LinkedIn.
Links:
Website: https://www.stillwellness.au/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-balcombe-2b0179102/
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