Building a Waitlist for Your Coaching Practice (And What to Do Once You Have One)

How to Set Up Your Waitlist

A coaching practice waitlist does not require fancy software. But it does require a clear, consistent process.

Step 1: Create a Simple Waitlist Form

You need a way to capture interested prospects without starting a full intake process. A short form works well. Include:

• Name and email
• What they're hoping to work on (one or two sentences)
• Roughly when they'd be available to start
• How they heard about you

Keep it brief. The goal is to qualify people and keep them warm, not to do a full discovery session before they're even a client.

Google Forms, Typeform, or a simple intake form through a platform like Talkspresso all work. The tool matters less than having a consistent place to send interested people.

Step 2: Write Your Waitlist Response

When someone reaches out and you're full, send a response immediately. Do not leave them in silence.

A good waitlist response does four things:

1. Thanks them for reaching out
2. Clearly says you're currently full
3. Invites them to join the waitlist and explains the process
4. Sets a realistic expectation for timeline

Here is a template you can adapt:

Thanks for reaching out. I'm currently fully booked through [month], but I'd love to stay in touch. If you're interested in working together, you're welcome to join my waitlist. I reach out in the order people joined when a spot opens, usually giving 1-2 weeks notice. Here's the link to get on the list: [link]. In the meantime, feel free to follow along on [platform] where I share [relevant content].

Notice what this does: it treats the prospect with respect, creates a clear and fair process, and keeps them engaged until a spot opens.

Step 3: Maintain Your List

This sounds obvious, but many coaches let their waitlist go stale. A good waitlist maintenance rhythm:

• Add new submissions to a simple spreadsheet (name, email, date joined, what they want to work on)
• Check the list when a spot opens, reach out to the next person first
• Remove people who do not respond within 72 hours and move to the next person
• Send a brief quarterly email to the whole list, even if you have no openings, to stay top of mind

That quarterly email does not need to be elaborate. A short paragraph with something useful for them (a resource, a reflection, a recent insight) plus a note that you'll be in touch when a spot opens is enough to keep people engaged for months.

Managing Demand Without Burning Out

Being popular is only good if you can turn it into revenue and sustainability. Here is how to use high demand to your advantage instead of letting it run you.

Be Transparent About Your Availability

Put your current availability status on your booking page. If you're full, say so clearly. "I'm currently fully booked with a waitlist. New spots open periodically" is honest and actually increases perceived value. People want what they can't have.

On platforms like Talkspresso, you can turn off new bookings or add a note to your profile when you're at capacity. This prevents you from getting inbound inquiries you can't act on, and it keeps your booking page from looking empty.

Set a Waitlist Cap

You do not need to let your waitlist grow to 50 people. Once your waitlist gets to 10-15 people, consider closing it too.

Why? Because if someone at the bottom of a 50-person waitlist finds out they'd need to wait 18 months, they will not wait. Keeping them on a list they'll never reach serves no one. Better to close the waitlist, tell people to check back in six months, and keep the list to a manageable size.

Refer Out

This is underused. When someone reaches out and you're full with no near-term openings, consider referring them to another coach you trust.

This feels counterintuitive at first, but it does three things:

• It helps the person in front of you, which builds your reputation
• It builds goodwill with other coaches who may refer back to you
• It keeps you from feeling guilty about turning people away

Having a short list of two or three coaches you can refer to in related niches is a professional move that pays back over time.

Use a Waitlist to Raise Your Prices

Here is the most important strategic point in this guide: a waitlist is the clearest signal you will ever get that your prices are too low.

Pricing is a matching mechanism between supply and demand. If demand exceeds your supply (your time), the correct response is to raise the price until supply and demand balance. This is not greedy. It is sustainable.

How to Think About the Price Increase

Suppose you charge $150 per session and you have a 3-month waitlist of 12 people.

That tells you something important: at $150, more people want your time than you can serve. That means there is a higher price point where demand would decrease enough to match your supply, and you would earn more while working the same hours.

A 20-30% increase is a reasonable starting point. If the waitlist shrinks but does not disappear, you've found a better equilibrium. If the waitlist stays the same size, consider another increase.

When to Raise Prices

Raise your prices for new clients immediately when:

• You're consistently booked 3+ weeks out
• Your waitlist has more than 5 people
• You have 10+ strong testimonials
• You've been at the same rate for 6+ months

For existing clients, give 30-60 days notice. A simple email works:

As of [date], my rate for new sessions will increase to $[new rate]. As a current client, I'll honor the current rate for 60 days to give you time to plan. If you'd like to lock in any sessions at the current rate before the change, feel free to book now.

This approach treats existing clients with respect while giving you room to grow.

A Note on Fear

Almost every coach who raises their prices expects bookings to fall off a cliff. Almost none of them do. What usually happens: a few price-sensitive clients leave (often the most draining ones), the same demand continues from better-fit clients, and revenue goes up.

The coaches who stay stuck at low rates usually aren't facing market resistance. They're facing their own discomfort with charging more. The waitlist is proof you have earned it.

Group Sessions: Serve More Without Working More

When you're at capacity for 1:1 sessions, group coaching is the most natural expansion.

The math is straightforward. If you charge $150 for a 1:1 session and you have 8 people in a group session, and you charge each of them $50, you've just made $400 in the same hour you'd have made $150. You're also serving 8 people instead of 1.

Types of Group Sessions to Consider

Small group coaching (3-6 people): Similar intimacy to 1:1, but shared cost. Works well for coaches whose clients have similar challenges. Career coaching, first-time manager coaching, and postpartum support are all examples where small groups work well.

Workshops (10-30 people): A focused, time-bound session on a specific topic. You teach, demonstrate, and take Q&A. Lower per-person cost, higher total revenue per hour.

Cohort programs: A structured series of group sessions over 4-12 weeks with a fixed group. These command higher prices because of the depth and community element.

Moving Waitlisted Clients into Groups

Your waitlist is a warm audience. When you launch a group offering, reach out to your list first.

A simple message:

I know you've been on my waitlist for a while, and I want to give you something useful while you wait. I'm launching a small group coaching program starting [date] for people working on [topic]. It's $[price] for [X sessions]. Spots are limited to [number] people. Here's more info: [link]. Since you've been waiting, I wanted you to hear about it first.

This converts waitlist frustration into an opportunity. You're solving their problem, not just making them wait longer.

How to Run Group Sessions Well

The biggest mistake coaches make with group sessions is trying to run them like a stack of 1:1 sessions. Group coaching is its own format.

• Structure each session with a framework, not just Q&A
• Spend 15-20 minutes on teaching or a specific topic, then open discussion
• Assign simple between-session actions that get discussed in the next call
• Use a shared doc or private channel for accountability between sessions
• Keep the group small enough that everyone gets airtime (under 8 for coaching groups)

Talkspresso supports group sessions natively. You can create a group coaching service with a fixed capacity, set your price, and share a booking link. Clients pay and register directly, and the platform handles scheduling, video, and reminders.

Tools for Managing Your Waitlist and Schedule

You don't need a complicated tech stack. Here's what works.

For Your Waitlist

Google Forms + Google Sheets: Free and simple. Forms captures submissions, Sheets stores them. Add a column for status (waiting, reached out, booked, removed). Entirely adequate for most coaches.

Notion database: If you prefer a more visual workflow, a Notion table works well. You can filter by status and see your full pipeline.

Airtable: Slightly more powerful than Sheets for filtering and views. Still free for small lists.

For the actual waitlist email capture, a simple link on your booking page or website is enough. "Join my waitlist" linking to a Google Form takes five minutes to set up.

For Booking and Payments

When a spot opens and a waitlisted client is ready to book, the booking process should be frictionless. This is where an all-in-one platform pays off.

Talkspresso combines scheduling, video calls, and payments in one place. You share your booking link, the client picks a time and pays, and the call is automatically scheduled with reminders for both of you. No back-and-forth, no manual invoicing, no Zoom link hunting.

For coaches managing a waitlist and intermittent openings, having a clean booking page to send people to (rather than "email me and we'll figure it out") is a professional upgrade that makes the whole process smoother.

Calendly or Acuity: If you already use one of these and want to keep your current setup, they both support basic appointment scheduling with Stripe payments added. The gap is that they're not built for video calls, so you're adding a separate Zoom link into the workflow.

For Group Sessions

For group coaching and workshops, you need a platform that handles multiple participants and a single payment per seat.

Talkspresso supports group sessions with configurable capacity limits. You set how many spots are available, set the price per seat, and share the link. Clients register and pay independently. When the session starts, they all join the same video room.

What to Tell People While They Wait

A waitlist client who hears nothing from you for four months is likely to forget you exist or find someone else.

Keep them warm without overwhelming them:

Monthly or quarterly check-in email: A brief note with something genuinely useful. A framework you've been using with clients (without identifying anyone). A resource you'd recommend. A reflection on something you've been thinking about. Not a sales pitch. Just value.

Invite them to free or low-cost content: If you run a podcast, newsletter, free workshop, or social content, invite waitlisted clients to engage with it. When a spot opens and you reach out, you're not a stranger anymore.

Be honest about timeline: If the wait is longer than expected, say so. "I wanted to give you an honest update: my current estimate is that spots won't open until [month]. I understand if that doesn't work for your timeline, and if you'd like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know." Most people appreciate honesty and will stay on the list.

The Bigger Picture: Running a Full Practice Sustainably

A coaching practice waitlist is not a problem to solve and forget. It is an ongoing signal about the health of your business.

If your waitlist keeps growing:

• Raise your prices until demand normalizes
• Add a group offering to absorb demand
• Reduce your 1:1 slots and increase group slots over time
• Consider hiring or training associate coaches if you want to grow beyond your personal bandwidth

If your waitlist stays flat or shrinks after raising prices, you've found your market rate for now. That's useful information too.

The coaches who build sustainable, profitable practices are not the ones who work the most hours. They're the ones who manage demand actively, raise prices when the market allows it, and create offerings that serve more people without requiring proportionally more time.

You've done the hard part of getting fully booked. The waitlist strategy is how you make sure that success compounds instead of burning you out.

See the full feature breakdown on Talkspresso for Coaches, or read our step-by-step guide for creators selling paid video calls.

Set up your coaching practice and manage bookings on Talkspresso →

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