When Your Warm Network Stops Being Enough
You did everything right.
You built a wait list. You earned a steady stream of word-of-mouth referrals. You became known in your community. So when you finally bring on contractors or associates to handle the overflow, the math seems obvious. Take the wait list, hand it over, watch the new hires fill up.
Then it doesn’t happen.
The people on your wait list don’t switch. They tell you, politely, “No, I signed up for you.”
This is the moment most service founders realize that scaling is a different game than starting.
The Trust You Built Was Personal, Not Transferable
When Sara Coyle, founder of Connected Roots Therapy, brought on her first contractors, she expected the spillover to be fast. She had a wait list. She had years of referral relationships. She had a name in the Ottawa therapy community.
But her wait list was loyal to her, not to her business. People hadn’t signed up for “a therapist.” They had signed up for Sara.
This is what every service founder eventually runs into. The trust that got you here was built one human relationship at a time. It doesn’t auto-transfer to a new face on your team, no matter how qualified.
Why This Catches Founders Off Guard
The strategies that fill a one-on-one practice are not the strategies that fill a team’s calendar.
When you are the service, your marketing is identity-based. People refer because they trust you specifically. The directory profile, the conference talk, the friend-of-a-friend introduction. All of that builds personal credibility.
When you bring on associates, the marketing job changes. Now you have to build credibility around your brand, not just yourself. You have to vouch for your hires in a way that lets your audience trust them by extension.
That’s a different muscle. And most founders don’t realize they need it until the wait list shrug happens.
What Actually Works When You Scale a Service Business
Three things hold up under pressure when you make this shift.
1. Show up in person, again and again.
For service businesses under multi-six-figures, social media is rarely the lever. There is too much noise and not enough trust to compete. What works is the same thing that worked when you started. Networking events. Sponsorships. Cards in your bag. Conversations at the coffee shop.
Sara is sponsoring a type 1 diabetes walk in Ottawa with a booth, because that’s where her people actually are. That kind of presence converts. A Facebook post does not.
2. Get sharper about your niche.
The clearer the niche, the easier the trust transfer. When Sara talks about working with adults navigating life with type 1 diabetes, prospects identify instantly. “That’s me. She gets it.” That clarity is what helps a referrer hand off to your team without losing the relationship.
Generic positioning makes the trust transfer harder. Specific positioning makes it almost automatic.
3. Hire before you feel ready.
Most founders hire too late. They wait until they are drowning, then they bring help on while burned out, distracted, and unable to train properly. The result is bottleneck on top of bottleneck.
The better play is to hire a little before you feel ready. Get the admin off your plate. Free up your strategic time. Use that time to do the relationship-building work that actually grows the business.
You cannot scale a service business while doing every operational task yourself. The math doesn’t work.
The Mistake Most Founders Make
The mistake is assuming that the playbook that filled your one-on-one practice will fill your team. It won’t.
You are no longer marketing yourself. You are marketing a business. The audience needs different signals, different proof, and a different sense of what they are buying.
The faster you accept that and adjust, the faster you stop being the bottleneck.
What This Means for You
If you are scaling and your contractors aren’t filling up the way you expected, it’s not because they aren’t good. It’s because the trust you built didn’t come with a transfer mechanism.
Build it now.
Show up in the rooms where your ideal clients gather. Sharpen your niche so referrals feel obvious. Hire your first admin before the inbox eats you alive.
This is the work that turns a personal practice into a business that runs without you at the center of every transaction.
If this is the shift you’re navigating right now, that’s exactly what we work on at Hakkola Horizons. The free guide From 10K to 40K Months breaks down the structural changes that actually move the needle. Grab it at HakkolaHorizons.com.
Full Transcript
Christine Hakkola: Welcome to FoundHer Rising, the podcast for women founders in wellness, coaching, and consulting who are ready to build businesses that create freedom, impact, and income. I’m your host, Christine Hakkola, business coach, former psychotherapist, and mentor to women scaling service-based businesses.
Today I’m joined by Sara Coyle. She’s the founder of Connected Roots Therapy and a registered social worker in Ottawa, Canada. She works with children and teens, families, and adults navigating complex emotions and experiences, including life with type 1 diabetes, using somatic experiencing and a relational approach. Sara, welcome to the show.
Sara Coyle: Thanks for having me.
Christine Hakkola: I’m so excited to have you here and have you share your story with us. Let’s just dive right in. 2019 was when you started your private practice. What was going on in your life and your work that led to you deciding to go out on your own?
Sara Coyle: That seems like so long ago now. 2019, pre-pandemic times. So in 2019, I was actually working in child welfare. I had been for a few years. Part of that, I worked in a clinical program that consulted for child welfare. And in that work, I was starting to get an opportunity to do some training in dyadic developmental psychotherapy. It’s a mouthful, DDP. So I had started to get some training in that and really loved it and wanted to have some more opportunities to do that in a more traditional therapy setting.
So I started working at a naturopathic clinic, just one evening a week on top of my full-time role. Great collaboration. It was really nice. That kind of got me started, and then it just grew from there. I loved it. And then life happened.
Christine Hakkola: So you were part of a group practice, but the naturopath had their own clinic and you came on as an associate there?
Sara Coyle: Yeah. There was a massage therapist, naturopathic doctors, physiotherapy, and a couple of us doing psychotherapy as well.
Christine Hakkola: Nice. So you got your feet wet in someone else’s practice. What was it that led you to deciding, okay, I’m going to open up my own private practice?
Sara Coyle: There was a lot going on at that time, and it was a cumulative piece. For starters, working full time in child welfare and feeling like it was a lot. I loved my job. I had a great team of people that I worked with. I love the work I do, but it was heavy work. So that was one contributing factor, thinking about what sort of balance I want in my life.
The other piece was we were just coming out of COVID. So that changed all of our worldviews and how we want to live. And then at the same time I got a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. So I was thinking about my health in a different way too. It became very prominent in how I take care of myself and what that looks like.
And at the same time, I was going through a breakup of a long-term relationship. It all came together where I was like, okay, what do I want to do next? Where do I want to go? What do I want my life to look like? That’s when I decided, you know what, I’m going to do this. I can take a chance. And I actually moved to Ottawa.
Christine Hakkola: I have to jump in and ask you right here. I’m imagining you living through COVID like we all did, under different circumstances. Also going through a breakup of a long-term relationship, transitioning your career, not exactly what you were doing but the way that your professional life looked. And at the same time, getting a type 1 diabetes diagnosis. That is a lot.
Sara Coyle: It was a lot.
Christine Hakkola: For you, what was it that came to the surface that you realized was a real value of yours or a real priority that informed the shift?
Sara Coyle: I think it made me slow down and think a lot about how do I want to live? Where do I want to live? What do I want my life to look like? It felt like a pivotal time to put myself first and think, okay, what do I want to do? Whereas previously I kind of did the things that you’re supposed to do and followed that linear line. And I was living in my hometown, which I loved and was really hard to leave. But I was thinking about what I want my future to look like. All of those things alone probably impact that, but altogether it was like, okay, I have an opportunity here to make the best of this.
Christine Hakkola: Yeah, as someone myself who’s a very futuristic thinker, I often find myself wishing that all of us collectively had more opportunities to just have that pause and go, what am I really doing here? What is it that I want? It’s unfortunate and also really common that we have those moments when crisis hits or when it is really difficult. What was it specifically for you about going into private practice that made you think this lifestyle, having my own business, can actually check the boxes of what it is that I do want to build for myself?
Sara Coyle: The first thing that comes to mind is balance. It really allowed me to, in a sense, work way less, and in another sense, work way more. It’s different work. But I get to choose it all. I get to choose how much I work. I get to choose what I’m working on. When I’m like, oh, I want to shift here, I can make the shift. I don’t have to ask anybody. So there’s a lot of freedom in that and a lot of balance.
It also lets me, I remember when I was moving to Ottawa, I had moved about three hours away, and that was moving away from all my family and friends. That was the biggest factor that made it hard to go. I was like, okay, I want to be able to visit everybody and still be a part of everyone’s lives, but also be doing the thing that’s really important to me. Private practice let me do that. I take Fridays off. I can go back home for the weekend if I want to. I’m very lucky to have lots of family and friends come visit me too. They like coming here. So it’s allowed me to do that. And my partner and I, we love to travel. So it gives us lots of opportunities to do that. I just take a week here or there, wherever I want.
Christine Hakkola: I really appreciated what you said about how in some ways I work harder and in some ways it’s easier. I think you hit the nail on the head, because I hear from a lot of female service providers, they have these ideas, and rightly so, we hear a lot on social media about what it’s like to own your own business. There’s kind of this golden carrot dangling that doesn’t always come into fruition.
But the thing that people do realize is it’s not really any less work. It is a lot more work in a certain way, because now you’re not just performing a service, you’re running a business. But like you said, it comes with these tradeoffs. It’s hard work, but now we’re building something that’s ours, something that we’re aligned with, where we feel like we can really be in service to the world. And like you mentioned, it also comes with these tradeoffs of, now I can choose when I work. If I don’t want to work Fridays, I don’t have to. If I want to take a week off, I don’t have to apply for permission from a boss. For you, that tradeoff was worth it.
Sara Coyle: It was, and it still is. That freedom and flexibility is amazing. And I had this idea of what it would look like originally, but it shifts and changes all the time. Sometimes someone will ask me, can you come out and do this activity or go on this trip? And I’m like, wait, I’m my own boss. I can say yes to these things and have work fit around my life and not the other way around.
Christine Hakkola: I want to get to some of the shifts and changes that have evolved in your practice over the years. But first, when you first went out on your own, what were some of the early things that contributed to your success or reaffirmed to you that I can do this thing?
Sara Coyle: A few things. I think the way I did it was really helpful. I didn’t just go out on my own out of nowhere. I started at that naturopath clinic. It was a stepping stone, and I had built a bit of a caseload. I had clients. Because of COVID, we learned virtual. So when I moved to Ottawa, I was able to bring all my clients with me because it didn’t matter where they lived. So I already had this solid client caseload that I could start from. It was small, but I was able to grow on that.
Another piece is that I actually did all my somatic experiencing training in Ottawa. So I had lots of connections in the therapy world here. That made a big difference, just getting referrals and having that network. And in somatic experiencing, it’s a totally different kind of training. You really get to know each other. You’re in your own personal therapy at the same time. It’s really good. Even now, those are people that I refer to, because I trust them as practitioners and I know them. Having that network really made a huge difference.
Christine Hakkola: I don’t talk about this often, but you and I were sharing before we started recording that I have my somatic experiencing training as well. I did it over 10 years ago. And I think now about the people in my network, there’s a core few who I met in those early days. I totally resonate, whether it’s through a specific type of training or any other type of network, with how important that can be in building the early foundation and leveraging those relationships. One, so you don’t feel isolated, but then also in those early days of building your business and getting word of mouth referrals.
Sara Coyle: Absolutely. And when I first moved here, I was able to use those connections. I worked at a couple of those people’s clinics to start off, and that was really nice. They were like, yeah, absolutely, come on in. So that was very welcoming. I didn’t have to start from zero.
Christine Hakkola: We can underestimate the power of our network sometimes. And those relationships are so important.
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So you offer more than just one-on-one therapy. You’ve expanded. Talk to us a little bit about the evolution of your business and what you do now.
Sara Coyle: Coming from where we were just talking about, I expanded once I had more clients and I was feeling really good. I wanted to have my own space. So I started by renting my own office space, just working under my name. And then I really wanted to, it’s always been a dream to have a group practice. I have a colleague who is one of my best friends, and we always talk about what we want to do in the future. How is this clinic going to look? We love doing that together. So I’ve always known I want to work towards that.
In the fall, I was like, my friend Taylor and I, the two of us encourage each other and support each other. She was starting and I was like, okay, I’m going to join. I’m going to do this too. We’ve helped each other do that.
Christine Hakkola: Do you run the business together, or do you each have your own business?
Sara Coyle: We each have our own businesses, but we are super linked. We would love to have one together, but we live far away from each other. The first thing is making that more possible. We do lots of things together. We meet once a week and do peer supervision with each other, business brainstorming. We couldn’t do it without each other. I have an accountability partner who’s a good friend as well. I also meet with her every week. I encourage that for every business.
Christine Hakkola: So necessary.
Sara Coyle: That’s where it started. I came up with the name Connected Roots Therapy, and it kind of started going from there. I thought, all right, let’s hire some contractors. Taylor was giving me a little push, like, come on, do it, why aren’t you doing it? And I’m like, you’re right. It was amazing. One of my contractors worked with me for years. I know her really well. So that felt like a really nice place to start.
Christine Hakkola: I love hearing about this evolution. As you know, and as many of our listeners know, when you first go into business by yourself, you’re putting on your business owner’s hat for the first time. There are particular challenges we come up against of, what am I doing? How do I start this thing? Calling, taxes, licensing, all the things. Then getting the first clients, getting your name out there, a website. There’s all these challenges that come with opening up your business and that come in the first few months, the first few years.
And then what a lot of us either do or don’t anticipate, as the case may be, is the new set of challenges that come when you break and diversify your offerings. I’m curious to hear from you, what were some of the things that came up that were either a learning curve or unexpected, that you suddenly realized, oh, this is an area that I need to grow as a business owner now, as you stepped into a group practice?
Sara Coyle: I’m still very much in it. This is very new and I’m loving every minute of it. But one of the biggest surprises to me actually was that I thought because I have a wait list and I have lots of networking for myself in the community, I thought once I brought on independent contractors, they would be full so fast. I’m like, oh, I have all these people on my wait list I can send to them.
But I found that people on my wait list were like, oh, no, no, no, we’re on your list. I was like, no, no, no, but this person’s really great, and this person’s really great. Which is true. But they were just like, no, but I signed up for you. So it was hard to shift people from that mindset or expectation. That surprised me a little bit. I was like, okay, I have to do marketing a little bit differently. I’m learning. The learning curve is steep, and I’m figuring it out.
Christine Hakkola: I’m really glad that you named that shift, because it’s a shift that catches most service providers off guard when they bring in other service providers to their business. That shift, when we move from one-on-one to whatever it is, whether it’s bringing in other independent contractors or launching a group or a workshop, it makes sense to think, oh, I succeeded doing what I was doing through word of mouth referrals or a directory profile or whatever it was that got me that first level of success of filling my one-on-one business.
But any time we shift the offer, and especially when we bring in other service providers, it fundamentally changes how people are in relationship with our business. And it’s something that unless you live through it or you’ve been explicitly taught about, I don’t think it’s intuitive to anticipate. Why it happens is because our businesses are often built off of those word of mouth relationships. We’ve built trust with people who feel good about referring to us. But then when the offer changes or the contractor changes, the service provider changes, that trust changes. It’s not that it’s broken. It’s not that you’ve done anything wrong. It’s just that, as you realized, you have to change how you’re doing your marketing, because now it’s no longer about building trust with me, it’s about lending credibility and building a brand and a reputation around not just the people you’ve brought on, but around your business.
Sara Coyle: Exactly.
Christine Hakkola: What have you found has worked or started to work, and what hasn’t worked at all as you’ve made some of these pivots?
Sara Coyle: It’s hard to tell at this point what’s working and what’s not. I’m still dipping my toes in. But some things that I’m doing that I’m hopeful are going to work well, one of the things I do is I try to rely on the more old school kind of going out in person and talking to people. I famously now have in my purse at all times cards for all of us at Connected Roots, and a little postcard kind of thing. Anywhere I go, whether I’m at the coffee shop or at the gym or wherever, I’m like, can I put this up? Or do you want to hear about this? Always kind of talking about it. I think that absolutely is helping. Lots of having conversations and just being top of mind for people. It might not be right now, but down the road, they’re going to think of us. I’m enjoying that, and I think that will pay off.
The other thing is I’m doing lots of social media, and I don’t know how effective that is at this point, but I have fun with it, so I’m going to keep doing it.
The other piece is thinking about getting more creative about ways to market, and one of those being, Taylor was the one that brought this up to me, and I was like, oh, this is genius. It was around sponsorship. There’s a Breakthrough type 1 diabetes walk for Ottawa Gatineau, and that’s in June. Connected Roots is going to sponsor that, and we’ll have a booth there. I’m really excited about that, because diabetes I’m very passionate about, and that community is a community I’m part of, and clients are also part of. It’ll be really cool to be there and get to talk to people. It’s also such a wonderful marketing opportunity. I think I’m going to have lots of fun there, and probably it’ll help with marketing as well. So thinking about things like that.
Christine Hakkola: I love that. To the degree that it’s helpful, Sara, I’ll just reflect back that the things you’re sharing that are working and not working are aligned with what I see, bigger picture, working and not working. What I see not working for smaller businesses is relying on posting on social media. Every once in a while I’ll come across somebody who has a lucky horseshoe along with them. But generally speaking now, people are so sensitive online, and there’s so much noise in the digital world. And even in a bigger business, even as you’re growing an associate practice, trust and relationships are still built face to face. That doesn’t have to be in person anymore. Luckily we have the digital platforms where we can connect, but that connection is so important.
When I see service providers trying to attract people through their Facebook page, through their Instagram, and they’re spending all this time and money posting and posting, they’ll say, I do all these things, or I spend this money on ads, and I’ll say, how is it working? Well, it’s not.
Sara Coyle: Yeah, exactly.
Christine Hakkola: I see that work for bigger companies, usually in multi six figures, when they have a lot to spend on ads. But it normally takes several dollars of ad spend and a really great strategy to get that to work. And most early service providers under 100K just starting to scale aren’t in a position where that typically makes sense, because the amount of time and money you have to put into it to be competitive, to get it to work, it’s not that it’s the wrong strategy period, but it can be many times the wrong strategy at the wrong stage.
What I do see working time and time again is what you’re doing with the networking. We sometimes call this cold outreach, which can give female service providers a negative feeling initially, but really what it is, is getting clear about who you serve. I love your niche of type 1 diabetes. I know you serve more than that, but it’s a really clear niche. People can resonate with that. Whatever we’re suffering from, whatever life experiences we have, are often comorbid with some sort of mental health issue, whether it’s distress or anxiety or depression or relationship issues. But when we can talk about the niche we serve in tandem with something else that helps people really identify, they’re like, oh, this person gets me, gets my lived experience. It also creates this other thing I’m suffering from. That’s the kind of thing that can really set you apart.
So to look for places like the walk, the sponsorship opportunity you mentioned, groups and organizations that are similarly minded or where your ideal client is hanging out, and showing up in person, not just with your card, but saying, hey, I’m Sara. What do you do? How can I help you? Time and time again, I see businesses that are doing that and that are focused on that really thrive. So I think you’re doing a lot of right things in that sense.
Sara Coyle: That’s reassuring. That’s good to hear.
Christine Hakkola: I can talk about marketing till the cows come home, Sara. But what’s one or two other pieces that you’ve either started to experience or you anticipate are going to be areas of growth for you as a business owner as you continue to grow?
Sara Coyle: I’m hoping to keep growing my team. That’s something I really, really miss about working within an agency. I was so lucky to have a team of amazing colleagues, and we’re all still connected. I really miss coming into the office. We had Monday team meetings. Coming into the office and seeing everybody, your weekends, just that connection piece. I’m hopeful that we can build that at Connected Roots long term. I try not to get too ahead of myself. I want to be the slow and steady kind of growth.
Christine Hakkola: That’s a great quality to have as a business partner.
Sara Coyle: That’s the dream, slowly trying to build that community both among our clients but also within our team together, and being that support for each other is really important to me. I started with just the three of us that are there right now. We have Thursday night group supervision. That’s one thing we’re starting, and I’m hopeful that it will continue to grow from there and really be able to be there for each other and have that connection.
Christine Hakkola: I really see and can feel your focus on the relational aspect and how important it is to have the right people around you and to build on those relationships. It’s such a fundamental aspect of building a strong team. One of the things that I see come on the heels of that really quickly in a business like yours, and I’m curious if you’ve given thought to this, is do you foresee yourself needing an administrative assistant in the next few months or year, or more systems to create more consistency across the team with all these different people?
Sara Coyle: 100%. I’m a pretty organized person, but this is already a lot to stay on top of. I actually interviewed someone last week for a virtual assistant. I don’t need it all the time, but just a couple of hours here and there to get some help. I think asking for help is a good plan at this point. And because I’m still carrying a full caseload myself, to be doing that one-on-one work and then also all of the admin and all of the marketing, it’s a lot of work. Some days I feel like I’m working all day long, and it doesn’t really turn off. That’s not why I got into this. I got into this to have balance and flexibility, and that’s really what I value. So I’m like, okay, it’s time to ask for some help here.
Christine Hakkola: Just because we can do all the things doesn’t mean we should. I’m really glad to hear that you’re thinking about this already. Most of the people that I meet or have clients come in and they’re struggling, they’re overwhelmed, they’re stretched thin. One of the biggest issues is they’ve actually just hired too late. They’ve waited and waited and felt kind of nervous about the expense. But then what happens is they get bottlenecked and the business’s growth actually stagnates, because they’re spending so much of their time and energy keeping the business going day to day. They feel really busy, but most of that is actually not contributing to the growth of the business. One of the best decisions we can make is hire actually a little bit before we feel like we’re ready, to get that person trained, get those things off our plates, so we’ve got some breathing room to keep focusing on what matters.
Sara Coyle: Yes, that is the goal.
Christine Hakkola: Tell me, Sara, as you look into the future, the next year, the next two to three years, what’s one thing that you’re most excited about in your business?
Sara Coyle: I’m most excited for the growth in the team aspect. I think that, and just having a team of support, that’s really important to me. I am looking forward to being able to, I love one-on-one work, but I also want to reduce that a little bit so I can do more supervision and more, I would love to run some groups, which I just haven’t had the space to yet.
Christine Hakkola: Right, expanding the business might help.
Sara Coyle: Exactly. I’m really looking forward to being able to just have more time with my family and friends and with my partner, and having more balance. As my business grows, I’m hopeful that that will level out more. That’ll give me that opportunity to have all of these important things in my life.
Christine Hakkola: Thank you so much for sharing your story and your journey and just a bit about what your experience has been like in business. If there are listeners who want to learn more about what you do or get in touch, where’s the best place for them to find you?
Sara Coyle: LinkedIn, Sara Coyle, no H on Sara. And on Instagram we’re connected.roots.ottawa. And my website, connectedroots.ca.
Christine Hakkola: Thank you, listener, for tuning in to FoundHer Rising. If today’s episode resonated with you, follow the show, share it with another founder, and leave a quick review. It helps more women find these conversations. You can connect with me on LinkedIn or learn more at HakkolaHorizons.com. Until next time, keep rising, and keep building the business that gives you freedom to live, lead, and create on your terms.
