148: When It's Too Soon To Start A Course, Membership or Group Coaching Program & What to Do Instead

Are you making the mistake of trying to create a course, membership or group coaching program too soon in your coaching or consulting business? On this week's episode, I go deep into why this might not be the best move for your business and what you should consider doing instead.

I've seen many entrepreneurs fall into the trap of launching a course or group coaching program prematurely, only to be left feeling defeated and doubting their ability to succeed. If you've been in this position or are unsure why your current course or program isn't gaining traction, this episode is for you.

I share real-life examples and experiences from successful entrepreneurs, providing valuable insights to help you make informed choices in your coaching or consulting business.

Some key takeaways from the episode:

• The Downside of Premature Group Coaching Programs
• Why One-on-One Coaching Should Take Priority
• The Power of Proof of Concept
• Key Factors to Consider Before Starting A Course Or Membership

…and much more! 

If you've been considering starting a group coaching program or course, or if you know someone who is, this episode is a must-listen. Share it with a friend who could benefit from this valuable information.

Have a question or topic you’d like to see covered on the podcast? Go to www.lifewithpassion.com/podcast and I’ll create a custom episode just for you!

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to let's get visible entrepreneurs. This is the podcast where we bring you the secrets behind what it actually takes to get seen, get known, and get more clients. I'm your host, Christine Ammerman, and I'm sharing my best strategies from over two decades of experience as a media marketing and messaging expert to help you expand your exposure, grow your personal brand, attract dream clients and more, all while staying true to your authentic self and unique vision. If you're a passionate, heart centered entrepreneur, thought leader, or expert looking to stand out from the crowd with confidence, you're in the right place. Are you ready? Let's get visible. Are you making this huge mistake in your coaching or consulting business? Are you trying to create a course or group coaching program too soon? Listen to this episode to find out if that's you and if so, what to do instead. This is honestly one of my hot button issues because I have had so many people come to me over the last nine years either planning to create a course or group coaching program way too soon, or having already done it and being completely devastated and doubting themselves and worrying that they are going to fail in their coaching business because they've already created one and no one came. I'm here to help you understand what to do if you've been sucked in by this kind of marketing, if you have tried your best to build it and no one came, if you are unsure why maybe your course or group coaching program isn't working or your membership, oh my goodness, your membership. And what you can do if you've experienced some of what I call coaching trauma where you have been coached by somebody who is selling a shiny object and it's taken you away from staying the course, from beating the drum of your work. It's maybe given you, maybe you signed up because it was new, because it was shiny, because it gave you a dopamine hit. Maybe you were comparing yourself to somebody way far beyond you in business and you wanted their same success, but now you realize, or now you're fearing that you started too soon. I have been there. I think we all have. And I want to normalize that. This is not a you problem. This is not understanding this particular business and how it applies to you and your stage of growth. So let's talk about why you might have started your course or group coaching program or your membership. Number one, you want to create more time, freedom for yourself. You want to create, in addition, the ability to scale your business and make more money without having to trade your time for money. I hear this a lot. I want to stop trading my time for money. I get that. And at the same time, this usually is implemented way too soon. Okay, when we talk about not trading our time for money, that is an extremely scaled way of thinking about your business. And yes, there are definitely ways to do it. But I'm going to argue that if you're not at six figures yet, it's likely that you're starting your course or group coaching program too soon because you haven't yet reached capacity for what you're able to do one on one. Now, you could argue with me about this and hey, I'm here for that conversation, but it could also mean maybe you get to raise your prices as a one on one coach. Maybe there are other opportunities to find out what it is exactly that your people want before you create that group coaching program or that course or that membership. Because if you go behind the scenes to do that, you might be doing it and wasting time while you could be booking out your coaching business one on one with high ticket clients. And this is how I typically advise my clients. Because number one, it's easier to sell one on one coaching than it is a group program at a lower price point. This is backwards of the way that our brains think about it. It's backwards of the way our brains, which are wired for scarcity, think that it should work. We think, okay, something lower price should be easier to sell. I'm here to tell you over coaching a lot of people and over my experience creating three multiple six figure offers in three different niches with three different platforms. So this is not about Christine did this one time with this one thing and it happened to hit for her, which frankly, is how most coaches teach you. So as a rule, when you're considering hiring a coach, I want you to look into how many different ways have they been successful because their ability to be successful in different niches with different platforms, different offers, tells you something about how well they're going to be able to customize it for you versus how they're just going to tell you the one strategy, whether or not it is actually aligned to your version of visibility and marketing and messaging. And you probably have been in coaching programs where it hasn't been aligned to your marketing or messaging and therefore it didn't work for you or it worked for you for a minute, but you didn't want to keep doing it because it didn't feel good. So this is often what I see with courses, group coaching programs and memberships. We might take a course or a group coaching program or a membership to teach us how to start that course or group coaching program or membership. It's very meta and a lot of the time those massive courses just don't provide you with the structure that you need. In addition to being a distraction from how you could most easily be making the money that you want to be making right now, do you have a solid client base? Do you have demand for your one on one coaching services? Before creating a course or group program or a membership, are you rocking and rolling? Is this a distraction or is it actually time? Most often it's a distraction. Why do I recommend one on one first and booking out one on one? Number one, it's proof of concept. It's proof of concept to make sure that there is a market and that you know how to market that market. That marketing offer, that you know how to market that offer from your expertise and approach. Because remember, it is not the best or most qualified coach who wins, it is the coach who is the best marketer. So when you are booking out one on one, it validates your method, it ensures that there is real demand for this knowledge and it shows you what to offer when you have a real legitimate reason to create that course or that group coaching program. Number two, those clients inside your one on one are providing you with exactly the information that you need to create that group coaching program of your dreams. These are your clonable clients. We're looking for your clonable clients who are your favorite clients to work for with one on one because you're understanding exactly what their challenges are. You're understanding their needs, you're understanding how they get the best results. And you're getting paid to do that rather than going away and hiding and behind a computer because you're scared or because you're uncomfortable or have resistance to showing up and marketing yourself. So you're creating something instead with the build it and they will come mentality. Get paid to understand exactly what your clonable clients want. Find out and pay attention to what you tell them over and over and over. This is what you create your group coaching program around. Every time you work with a client one on one, you get a chance to refine your offer as well. And that's point number three. Everything that you do polishes your techniques. It polishes your delivery. It makes you a more efficient coach, and it also tells you how to market it. Because as you refine your offer, you refine your content. Number four, building a reputation through testimonials and through word of mouth. When you do this one on one, your reputation, your credibility skyrocket. When you are working one on one, both you and your client have more, quote unquote skin in the game. You're working at a higher price point, you're working at higher touch, and you are going to see, typically you're able to get people better results in one on one. So again, you're getting those testimonials. I have paid multiple times, 30K for multiple masterminds that have, like you could argue, less content in them than programs that I paid a lot less for, but I got bigger results because I had made a bigger commitment. And that really speaks to the skin in the game and this idea of how I showed up because I had made a bigger investment. Next, I want you to think about how many free programs you have sitting in your downloads folder, which I say is where all good intentions go to die, or maybe still in our email, right? People who pay pay attention, and that includes you and that includes me. When something is free or very low ticket, we do not show up because we haven't invested as much. And the same is true for your clients. They're going to show up bigger when they've paid more to work with you and they're going to put more effort in, and therefore you're going to get better testimonials to share when you go to the group coaching program. Now, I mentioned marketing, and that's point number five. How many of you, if you're listening, would love to have a coaching business based on referrals? Would love to just have people making introductions to you all of the time. And that being the way that you get clients, well, guess what? When you're helping people get great results one on one, which again, is easier to do, you can get those referrals because people are super satisfied. And then when you're ready to launch that group program, that course, that membership, you have that leverage to ask for initial sales, which are often harder in a new program than doing the same thing where people are used to, let's say, your one on one, right? So as you begin to think about these one on one clients and oh my gosh, do I want to churn, do I want to get more? I want you to think about creating super fans, creating superfans who are going to not only give you those great testimonials, but also share the word about you and create that leverage for when you're ready to launch. Now, the last thing I want to say about why you might be starting your group coaching program or your course too soon is because often we go behind the scenes and we invest all of this time, maybe we sign up for platforms that cost us hundreds of dollars a month. And if we launch it and no one comes, it can be really devastating. So I want you to be building an audience. I want you to be building out a program with consistent recurring income before you invest your time, your money and your energy into creating a program where you're going to need to have more of a structure. You're going to need to really outline what you cover in each week or in each module. And how do you find those things out? By working with people one on one and noting what gets them results, what you say over and over, and what is most efficient and easily being able to conglomerate these things into a specific framework or formula. You don't have a framework or formula that you know works that's validated when you first start. So do that one on one and help people at a really high level. When you have so many people applying to work with you that you have a waitlist, this is when it's best to build these things out because people want access to you. Most coaches do this way before reaching this point. How close are you to capacity? Have you considered if you're close to capacity, starting a waitlist and letting people know that something exciting is coming? If you're not at capacity, what would it take? Is it a price increase? Or what if you're feeling burnt out on one on one, what would make it exciting again? What would make it exciting again? Until you're ready to scale. Now, in order to scale past one on one coaching into a course, into a group program, into a membership, first of all, you're going to need more visibility on your offers. When to scale is when you have the following things in place. And just to circle back, the reason that I say you need more visibility is typically if we're going to convert a very small percentage, Denise Duffield Thomas says she counts on 1% to 3% conversion rate anytime she launches and she has a low ticket course. So what is your engagement? What is your list size? What are the followers that you have who are actively engaged with you on social media? What's one to 3% of those? That is what a very seasoned, multiple seven figure entrepreneur who has worked with the top coaches in the world counts on for her lower ticket course. So why would we be any different, right? So what is your audience size like? And would that get you the kind of conversion if it was super dialed in if your marketing, if all the things I'm about to cover were covered, would you be happy with that result? In order to scale past one on one coaching, here are this is harkening back to my days in journalism. Do you know who exactly you're here to serve? Are you clear on exactly who your clonable client is? Because you've worked with people that you love and probably some that you don't. So you know exactly who you are most excited to help and who this is not for. So I often tell my clients when they run into a challenge with a client, I say, great. You are literally building your list of who this is for, your favorite clonable clients, and who this is not for, who you don't want to work with. And you can put that in your copy. Next what they want most, who you're here to serve and what they want most. You can create the promise of your program, which again, needs to be one single promise as opposed to being able to customize it for what you're doing. One on one. You're creating the promise of your program based on your experience of what your one on one clients, who are your favorite clonable clients needed and wanted the most instead of what you're guessing that they think they need, which is usually what it is that you need. And we project that onto our clonable clients instead. Use your one on one what they have taught you about what it is that they want most next exactly when they need to do certain tasks. So who? What when they need to do certain tasks, you can build out the timeline of your program with a lot more clarity once you understand how you've helped people over and over and what their trajectory has been and what order they've done things in and when they've done things, how long it's taken them to do things in your one on one. And I will tell you that in a group program, it typically takes people longer to take action than it does for one on one. So pro tip, when you are building out your group program, allow for more time than you think it's going to take. All right, because you're the expert and you assume that people are going to be able to do it faster. Who? What, when? Where they need the most help, what are their biggest challenges? Where are they likely to get stuck? Where are they likely to have resistance? Again, high touch. One on one, you're able to help them move through that faster. But in the group coaching program, you can call it out and have people still feel really seen, heard and understood. Great example of this. We just had a client inside of the client attraction amplifier say that she went through. She shows up to the group calls, she's getting clarity, she's getting consistency. And as she dived into some of the lessons, she said, oh my gosh, you're reading my mind. You just took care of all of my resistance and all of my objections. This is exactly what I needed to hear. Do you know how we knew that? Because I worked with a lot of people one on one and understood exactly what it was they needed and where they needed the most help. Next how are they going to get to their goal most efficiently? How are they going to get to their goal most efficiently? What exercises help them? Right? We have our expert topic extraction exercise. We have our confidence resume. We have our clonable client interviews. We have our offer optimization overhaul. Right? What exercises are most effective in creating the transformation that gets them to the promise of your program? What have you had your clients do over and over and over? What's gotten them the best results include those things in your group program. Lastly, why it is that they want to work with you. By this point, when you've worked one on one, you'll have done enough sales calls and coaching calls to give you an infinite number of pieces of content for your marketing. You can speak to exactly what they want and why, and make it so much easier for your clonable clients to self identify and raise their hand when you're ready to offer that more scaled offer. I hope this was helpful to help you identify whether you are considering starting your group coaching program, your course, or your membership too soon, and what you can do instead to really dial in what you're likely already doing, make more money doing it, and set yourself up for success when the time is right. Thank you for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, give us a follow or subscribe. And if you have a friend who is thinking about starting their course or group coaching program or their membership, consider sending this to them so that they have all of the information that they need to make a wise choice and informed choice about what's best for them rather than chasing a shiny object. I really want to help more people who are here to make an impact, people who are here to serve the world, to do that in the most effective, simple way possible. And that is my intention with creating