How a Retirement Coach Gets Clients by Writing One Article a Month
Apple Podcasts Do only business coaches make money? Nope. This season of the Coach Pony Get Paid to Coach podcast, we're going deep on five wildly different coaching niches to prove you can get paid to coach — and design the life you want — in almost any niche.
In episode 4, Coach Pony founder Christie Mims talks with Elaine Belansky, PhD. Elaine is a retirement transition coach who helps thoughtful, accomplished women design a next chapter that feels intentional, meaningful, and fully their own.
After a 30-year university career in public health and education, Elaine now supports women navigating the identity shifts, emotional complexity, and loss of structure that often accompany retirement. Drawing on psychological research and lived experience, she guides clients through a structured process to clarify who they are becoming, design a weekly rhythm that supports energy and engagement, and choose ways to contribute that feel purposeful — not obligatory.
She is also a regular contributor to Sixty and Me, where she writes about the emotional and identity shifts women face in retirement.
Here's the twist: Elaine's main marketing channel isn't social media or ads. It's one article a month for Sixty and Me, an online publication that reaches about 75,000 women a day. She found it by asking AI where to pitch. On the day we recorded, a new article brought 12 people onto her email list in its first 90 minutes. She shares exactly how the article-to-freebie-to-client path works, and why her part-time, one-on-one business is built to fit the life she wants.
Listen to the full episode to hear about:
- How freaking out about her own retirement ("what in the world am I going to do with myself?") became her niche
- Why career women get plenty of help with the money side of retirement, and almost none with who they're retiring to
- Her business model: the Bold Retirement Method, 12 one-on-one sessions with research-based packets and email support, for $2,100
- How she used AI to find Sixty and Me, and how she pitched it
- Her path from article to client: a free resource at the end of each article, then a 6-email nurture sequence
- How her articles led to speaking invitations, and why she turned one down
- Her biggest early mistake: being afraid of hearing no
- What she did right from the start: getting certified, and joining Build a REAL Business
- How a mastermind partner she met in BARB got her through the doubtful days
- Her advice for new coaches, and why coaching is "so much more fun" than academia
To learn more about Elaine Belansky:
- Elaine's website: free resources, the Bold Retirement Method, and how to work with her
- Sign up for Elaine's newsletter
To learn more about Christie Mims:
- Coach Pony
- Build a REAL Business 10-Year Anniversary Special: our flagship program on how to start and scale your coaching business turns 10 this year. We're offering the best deal we've ever offered — this October only. Save thousands at coachpony.com/barb
- Download Coach Pony's FREE 14-Day Client Blueprint
Subscribe to the Coach Pony YouTube channel so you’ll see all the latest from Christie as she discusses the latest ideas and topics from the coaching industry!