Should You Add a Coaching Offer to Your Business?

This week, Emily Merrell and Lexie Smith discuss the ‘should’s’ and shouldn’ts of adding a coaching offer to your existing business. They discuss their own experience in adding a coaching revenue stream, and how they evolved in their own businesses in doing so. Tune in to hear their tips on both what to consider and what to do to create more impact and revenue with coaching. 

Here’s what you’ll learn: 

• Tips on how to add a coaching offering to your existing business
• Em and Lex’s experience in how they created their own coaching offerings
• How to price your coaching offer 
• Lexie breaks down her PR journey and evolution of her coaching business to now opening up an agency branch
• Tips on making sure your offering fits within your personality and your business model
• The shoulds and shouldn’ts of adding a coaching offering to an existing business
• And more!

Follow Em & Lex on Instagram at @readysetcoachprogram

Learn more about the Ready Set Coach Program at Readysetcoachprogram.com

Learn more about Six Degrees Society and THEPRBAR inc.

Transcript

Lexie Smith  

Alexi, hi. emaline The girl with the queen? Happy 22nd birthday. How does it feel to be 22? What? Wow,

Emily Merrell  

I mean, I can barely barely remember 21 Because it feels like it was yesterday. And it was guys because I'm only 22

Lexie Smith  

years ago so happy. Oh, no. No, I'm not mean I am. 36 is a beautiful age. There's nothing to be ashamed of. at all, it's you are in the prime of life. And what advice do you have for our listeners on this 36 journey around the sun?

Emily Merrell  

Protect your joints. Protect your joints, guys. Oh my God, my voice just cracked and like perfect. I mean, no, truthfully, I feel like my joints are definitely something I do. And I feel a little bit more than I definitely did in my 20s and I was a big runner in my 20s. And running now. It feels like running through concrete is a lot harder, wet concrete. To be thick those vitamins, protect your joints and be mindful. Wear sunscreen. Protect your skin. I remember when people would tell me to do that. And like I'm never getting age spots. And like you'd like see little things popping up on your skin. And you're like, oh, shoot, stars are just like us.

Lexie Smith  

Okay, so body well cover your body? Well.

Emily Merrell  

Oh, one thing I've been telling a lot of college students, I didn't have the money to do this. But I wish someone had told me and I would have found the money. I wish I'd buy real estate as a younger kid. And I mean that no, that's really random and very specific. But like, I wish I had an asset, even if it was like a really crappy house that I was able to turn into a bigger asset and then a bigger asset down the line and evolve and grow with me as I was able to

Lexie Smith  

invest more money. fantastic advice. If you are interested in wealth, at any point, the sooner you can get your foot in the door with any sort of real estate investment, the sooner you'll be able to do the next step, Step Up next step up, I am we so we obviously have our home, which is our primary investment at this point in time. But our next big investment that we want to make is something else in real estate. So like what to be determined. Because the I don't know the market, CJ, I've been wanting to pull the plug on this for years, he's a little bit more cautious, whether it be something we buy to rent out some sort of something that gives us some sort of monthly return. And at one point prior to buying our house now we own a condo that we rent it out for a couple of years. And so there was recurring revenue that came in and it was really nice. Now we sold that to be able to step stone into our house now. Like yeah, smaller, something

Emily Merrell  

I know. And I feel like it's not something you're talked about. It's not talked about unless you have parents that are like really savvy with real estate. And but I like that way of like building wealth and building generational wealth and something that can be passed on. One of the investments that I'm looking at right now. I met with one person this week, and I'm meeting with a second person that the end of the week is to build an adu an additional dwelling unit. So even direct my house before we have this like very old garage and then a carport. And you can turn it into a two car garage and add like a livable space above. But it's a fortune. It's like literally building a second home if you add plumbing and the foundation for it. But if you don't add plumbing, it's so much cheaper. So I'm like would I have to crunch some numbers but thinking about like if we were to turn it into an adu? Would it increase the value of our property down the road? And also, could we turn it in into an Airbnb? So we have some passive revenue coming in and like at what point will that even out with the investment of the adu and the the Airbnb but also like when you have in laws coming into town? It's really nice to give them their own space.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah You have a separate garage we are my property is pretty unique to because I have the detached garage. So that's something we we've talked about and there are versions in my neighborhood where this is my neighborhood like the outer rim of homes. They do have the adu is on top of the garage where my inner rim is little for people is cattle, people should go have the adu up top, but it's a really smart investment. If you're looking to build wealth long term before I transition it though, also, I just want to make sure you have the mic one more time in case you had any last parting 36 years of life. Your birthday because it was your birthday guys. Oh, okay.

Emily Merrell  

Um, I'll say something that surprised me. And this is I might get like a little choked up. But I've been a mom now for almost 20 months. And it's like, literally been the best thing I've ever done in my entire life. And probably the thing that I'm most proud of in terms of being able to, like, hang out with this little dude. And if you're an answer, if you're around kids, or don't want kids totally cool, but just spend time with them. And you realize it's such a refreshing take on life, when someone's looking at life through like a brand new lens, where they're not jaded by life, they're not disappointed by anyone, they can feel the whole range of emotions within like a 22nd burst. It's phenomenal. Like the actor award goes to their Oscar goes to, to Jackson. But I think just pausing and being able to be like Holy smokes, he is growing and evolving and learning every day. And like, the stories I tell him or the songs they sing him or the conversations I have with him are making that difference in his life. And so yeah, that's just kind of my my reflection of where I'm really, really happy with, with who I am. And what I've created, and the people I've surrounded myself with in this 36 year, I'm spinning on this planet.

Lexie Smith  

That's beautiful. Emily, I got I got a little emotional there myself. Again, Mama Mama hood. Um, so before we just went into mama hood and made made me want to cry, we were talking about real estate. And we were talking about real estate as a smart way to build wealth. Another way to build wealth is diversifying your revenue streams. Now, we've talked about this on the show before but we want to talk about it from a little bit of a different lens today. And we want to talk about should you add a coaching offer to your business and some considerations, not the how not the How to but the should you and what are the benefits? What are the pros? What are the opportunities? What are the cons, all the things?

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, and I think, you know, coachable, coachable moments, I was even thinking about someone who's like built, built an empire in real estate. And I bet you these people who are really smart with their real estate, I have a coaching revenue stream coming in for them where they're teaching other people how to build their coaching, I'm sorry, how to build their real estate empire. And so it's, it's like, it's such a it's a great conversation, Lexie. And I'm curious, what are your initial thoughts about people who are successful business owners,

Lexie Smith  

creating this revenue stream? So you and I were doing a brainstorm session recently. And every single bit of context, everyone, every cohort that Emily and I have already set coach, we intentionally curate the majority of it around sort of a certain theme that we feel like would foster mutually beneficial partnerships, maybe different events and basically create an opportunity for the woman within themselves. So this credit cohort is largely focused around family now that not every single person in the cohort is a mom, but we have a quite a big chunk that our moms are offered something in the family space. And it's been a really great opportunity for for partnerships. Okay, so for this cohort that we're enrolling Now, depending on when you're listening, we're in June right now. So we're enrolling in our summer 2023. We are calling those that serve the world of business and specifically consultants, freelancers, agency owners, or business owners who serve those in business, because it is one of the most natural examples or it's a business model that makes so much sense to add on a revenue stream. And I'm going to pause I have examples, but I feel like I've been talking a lot. So

Emily Merrell  

I love your voice. No, I think that yeah, so one of the conversations I had recently with a friend was talking about her own marketing agency. And talking about how oftentimes a challenge that can occur is people hear the numbers of how much it costs to work with a marketing agency. And it's not cheap. It's, you know, usually upwards of four or $5,000, for all of these incredible deliverables. And this person while they might, at least, yeah, small, at least, you've seen quotes for like, Raelert $40,000 a month. And a lot of these clients then are like, I want this, but I can't afford this. And they're not at the place where, yeah, they're not at the place where they can implement it. And so instead of letting that individual just walk away, and hope down the lines, like in three or four years that they they have all their ducks in an order in order and they're coming back to you and be like, yes, sign me up for your services. This is the opportunity, the missing gap, where you could plug in a coaching revenue stream. So for example, you could create a four month coaching program. And you could invite them in and say, hey, look, I can't add, you know, I can't discount my services for my coaching or for my, for my consulting or from agency, but I can come in, and I can help you one on one for four months, implement and learn how to do X, Y, and Z. And then the coolest thing about this Lex two is oftentimes now this person knows and understands what goes into it. They do it, they they do the work, they're empowered by it, but down the line. Now, they also have built like no interest. And so when they have reached that point, when they're like, You know what, I, I've done it, I know how to do it, I'm ready to hire you. As the agency component. It's extending the lifecycle of the client.

Lexie Smith  

Yes, and I know it's your birthday, but I'm going to talk about me for a second because

Emily Merrell  

it's over. It's fine. It was yesterday.

Lexie Smith  

My journey with PR is a really interesting example. Now I did a lot of things backwards in this world. So I started with a coaching business, the coaching business eventually lended itself to starting an agency in a very similar way. So I started the coaching business, because I knew there were so many done for you service providers out there Sultans agencies, etc. What happened, though, point is people that were coaching with me, once he started seeing success, they reached a revenue point or a phase in their business where they then wanted to work with an agency. They're like, hey, Lex, when are you going to start an agency? I was like, Okay. So now I have one, I love it. But the point being, it's demonstrating that natural progression that can happen. Now if you currently have a done for you practice, what I'm saying is, now you have an opportunity to not just get on sales call after sales call and spend your whole life handling price objections, you can add a coaching offer to your business to meet them where they're at now. And then one day prep and prime them to become their agency as well or done for you.

Emily Merrell  

Next, how can people find out how to work with us?

Lexie Smith  

Super simple, go to ReadySet? Coach program.com They can show knows.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, and I think when you get a proposal to so you have a really successful call with someone. And I imagine lax if someone's like, oh, my god, yeah, I want to have done for you done for you. PR and then they get your proposal for done for you versus done with you. They're like, Oh, well. Okay, I want this one instead and down the line, I want to aspire to that one. So it's an opportunity to not lose them as a potential client. And also Yeah, like to what we said earlier, just build that like no interest to continue working with them and increase the longevity of their lifecycle.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, and guys, it is so much smarter than just a cost decision. Because for example, when I upgrade a coaching client to a agency client for PR, they are phenomenally a better client because they understand now what they're paying for. There's so much value in getting your if you're a business owner yourself in coaching and learning how to do the thing yourself, even if at one point and this applies for anything accounting. Even if you're going to outsource accounting at one point. it's to your benefit as a business owner to learn how to do it yourself. And I'm actually going to share an example with my husband here. Two weeks before I popped out and forced him to take maternity leave, for I popped out. I was like myself

Emily Merrell  

where this is going

Lexie Smith  

Ashlyn came out of my belly. There. He's a business owner as well, director of HR quit. And she was solely responsible for payroll, she was the person who did payroll, they were all of a sudden in panic mode, what they ended up having to do was hire an old employee, spend a bunch of money to get her to come back in and teach my husband how to do payroll. Now, he's at a company stage and growth where he didn't need to. But it's a really great example where at least I feel as a business owner, you should know how to do the core functions in case something happens with personnel.

Emily Merrell  

Totally, totally agree with that, and lacks when you think about individuals that it would make sense for them to add a coaching revenue stream. I also think about the value that it brings me to help people and let them kind of access my brain. Pretty much they can have a run of it. While we are coaching together, like I don't know if you feel this way when you're coaching, but I feel picking your brain calls are kind of the natural thing that happens. First and foremost, you're a successful business owner, or freelancer, or consultant or agency owner, and you've done, you've done the thing. And then all of a sudden out of the woodwork. It's like that girl from high school and that sorority sister, and that person you met once in a random place that it's still connected to you on LinkedIn, like start asking to pick your brain, because they want to know your secrets, and they want to know your strategies. And they want to know, how did you get from here to here? And can you tell me all of the things over a 30 minute coffee date? And you're like, Oh, my effing God? Am I gonna? How am I going to do this? And it's, well, it can start off being really flattering. It can leave you feeling really exhausted, it's really hard to preserve your boundaries in those things. And so adding a coaching revenue stream is a wonderful and empowering way to be able to give value and provide resources and mentorship, but also preserve your time and energy.

Lexie Smith  

But he sounds like a woman speaking from personal experience.

Emily Merrell  

Why no I would I loved riding the subway and going into unpaid coffees like 12 a day, it was so fun.

Lexie Smith  

Right? So Emily basically was the person if you weren't living reading between the lines to everyone, and anyone wanted to pick her brain. And she's like the happiest, happiest, nice, happy to nicest person ever. And it was really, you know, it becomes a lot and it's rolled

Emily Merrell  

over. I was like a puppy. I was like, there you go. Here's my belly ticket.

Lexie Smith  

James auditing. So we kind of highlighted consultants, freelancers, and agency owners. They're such a natural, smart business reason to add on a coaching offering of some sort. Now that can be low ticket, it could be in form of, you know, maybe a course it could also be coaching, one on one short term, like those 90 minute sessions, that could be a program that, you know, there's considerations there for your time to think about business owners. However, there's another really interesting opportunity for and I want to highlight, pest ReadySet coach, graduate, she's also in our grad program, who was a product based business owner had grew a successful Candle Company. She wanted to become a business coach to help other product based business owners learn how to grow their business, product based business partnerships, right. So that is an example of in her life when she felt a little exhausted by all the things that happen or that get, like go into a manufacturing a product based business. This was an easy add on for her in one where she didn't have to have everyone just picking her brain. And it made her feel refreshed with her business again.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, and being able to again, not look at her business, if she put cheap, she's shuttered her business. It wasn't for naught. It was for being able to take those learnings in that growth and being able to share it and exercise the value that she had and those learnings that she had in a really strategic strategic way moving forward. In the same vein, I feel like I can gosh, I can I can give you two stories of some very similar people. They had their business needs so many learnings from their business and that ways that they could, for example at creating the marketing like one of my girlfriends created, created a jewelry business and she understood that the thing that she liked more than creating the jewelry was creating the marketing for around the jewelry and creating the experiences and the the emails and the websites and like that ended up becoming her law. I've in her passion. So then she took she ended up selling her business. And now does websites and marketing and emails for product product based businesses.

Lexie Smith  

So if we were to turn this episode right into should you add a coaching offer to your business? Here are some examples based on everything that Emily and I just said that would lead you towards the yes, you should. So you should consider it. If you're looking for a new Low risk, low cost revenue stream, you should if you really want to learn or figure out how to extend the life cycle of one of your clients, you should if you really want to give back or maybe something is pulling at your heartstrings, and you're in a position where you're ready to really step into mentorship. What are some other shoulds? Or shouldn't?

Emily Merrell  

I think so another shed is you get a lot of DMS, or messages with from people being like, can I have X amount of time on your calendar? So to ask you questions. We haven't a perfect example of a of a past client who recently just added it on. And she was she was nervous, but she just took she took action. And she was able to add in books, someone booked immediately in that. Like you want to build a life where it's not your physical body that is doing the work. And so I think, especially as freelancers if you're listening to this, and you're a photographer, or if you're someone that is creating with their body something you have to think longevity wise and at the start of the show, I talked about my my ache in my aching joints. Why if you are a chiropractor, if you're a new are like hands on moving people with your your body, like is there a way where you can help other chiropractors build their business and become a coach that way, you know, so you can still take your expertise.

Lexie Smith  

And that's I said earlier, low risk and low cost because the business model of coaching really can be done virtually you don't need extra products, you don't have to stock up on anything. So aside from basic systems, and maybe if you invest in coaching yourself and you know, general reoccurring costs, like taxes and what have you, it really is a light risk business model. On the flip side, you shouldn't add coaching, a coaching offer to your business, if you don't want to teach,

Emily Merrell  

let's start there. And you shouldn't also do it if you don't want to be the face of your business. I think that's something that you have to be cognizant of like I have my Hydro Flask in front of me, I have no idea who created a Hydro Flask.

Lexie Smith  

But all of a sudden it was like Haley from Hydro Flask is here, she would have the person would have to be really comfortable with like marketing themselves for this specific offer. So if you're someone who likes to hide coaching is probably not the right thing for you totally agree that's a great one. You also shouldn't maybe do this, if the only thing you're looking for is really fast, high volume sales. I'm building this while low risk and it can be quick. A lot of people fall into the trap of thinking they can just build and launch for example and online course and build it and they will come and that's not the case. It's like any other offering you've probably launched might take initially some time to get going. But once it's going, you know can be a low cost investment for a really high return.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, and you should also shouldn't do this if you have like a love hate relationship with email or social media. Knowing that you're gonna have to put your offer out there. And one of the resistances we've talked about in past episodes is people being like, oh my god, I can't say that. I'm a coach and on LinkedIn, people are gonna judge me. I'm scared. Totally normal, totally respectable. But also, how are you gonna let people know if you're not whispering it or putting it out? To any

Lexie Smith  

shizzle Are we are we not? Are we missing any other things? My brain is drying up a little bit.

Emily Merrell  

I gotta water I gotta water Lexi later. I think the last thing too is you don't do this. If you're not someone who likes to help people. And I think that's a real or real thing. Like coaching is something about holding space for people and helping people and for both laksa Knight helping people actually be curious like what's your Enneagram

Lexie Smith  

you asked me to sign No, no, like the only way I know it is because you probably told it to me once and my brain doesn't remember I So sorry.

Emily Merrell  

It's okay. It's okay we're gonna have a whole session on this afterwards but anyways, um, you like to help people like it is literally my love language and Lexi I imagine love Lexi's love language often study her her things later. But in terms of like helping individuals, it makes me feel so good to be able to make a change in another person's life.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, so you should if you're looking for something where you can give back where you can create impact, this is a really great, great thing to consider. So your homework today is to make a decision. Should you or shouldn't you you listening to this right now, if this episode applied to you, if you're sitting on the fence, we just gave you the questions you need to ask yourself, so your homework is to decide, should you? Yes, you should, or shouldn't you? Not? You shouldn't.

Emily Merrell  

And with that, we will see you the next time. If you're enjoying the ReadySet coach podcast, please leave a review wherever you are listening. For more information about ReadySet coach, visit ReadySet coach program.com