EPISODE 07

Behind the scenes of my business coaching model

Your business model will change over time as you experiment, gain experience, and learn what works for you.

In this episode, I share a whole lot of lessons and insights gained over the years on my business model and how I package and deliver my coaching.

Topics I touch on include low vs. high-ticket offers, my essential coaching tools, and where I personalize vs. systemize.

show transcript

Hey, friends, and welcome back. Today, I’m peeling back the curtain a little bit, and I want to take you behind the scenes of my business and really share with you a whole lot of lessons and insights that I’ve gained around my own business model. And when I say that, what I’m really talking about is my offers, my different revenue streams, how I package my services in terms of being a business clarity mentor, essentially being a business and marketing coach. So if you are just starting as a coach or if you’re at one of those points in your business journey where you’re thinking about tweaking and evolving your business model, I think that you might find some of what I have to say, really interesting, perhaps inspiring. Maybe it sparks some ideas for you, I hope.

Because, you know, your business model, it is something that will change over time as you learn and gain more experience and you find out what works for you. So there’s around I have a list here in front of me around 7 key things or main areas of things I want to share with you today that I have learned as I’ve evolved my own coaching business model as a business clarity mentor. Okay. So the first thing I wanna talk about is how I came to stabilize my core offers. In other words, my signature 1 on 1 coaching programs.

I actually have 2. Many people will just have 1. But for me, it makes sense to have 2 because I have 2 ideal client types. 2 client avatars, if you will. 1 type of client I serve is beginners in business.

The other is more experienced business owners. And although I structure my programs and how I operate within those in a very similar way, I do have 2 different sales pages to speak specifically to these 2 different people because, the questions and challenges when you’re beginning your business are vastly different than the set of challenges and questions and goals you have when you’re ready to evolve your business, when you’re 2 years in or 5 years in or 10 years in, right, or even more. And along the way, what happened with me is I was really focusing on beginners in business to start, And I only had the one signature program that really addressed that person and their needs. And then over time, I was also in reality, I was actually other people were coming to me as well, more experienced business owners, and I was also serving them. I just wasn’t publicly talking about it so much, and I didn’t have a specific program on my website for them.

And eventually I added 1. And so now I have these 2 sales pages, these 2 programs, and I outline a sort of process that I take you through. But the reality is that process is not set in stone, and I may end up jumping around. There’s certain foundational things I want to address first with each type, but it really is very customized. And I even say on my website, I say these are the main areas we focus on spending more or less time on what you need.

Because the reality I found is some people come to me and they they’re like, hey, Beth, I I have total clarity on my vision, my purpose, and the x y z. But where I’m really stuck is a b c, you know? And then we whatever it may be. It may be niche or how am I going to scale my business model, or how how do I launch a brand new offer? How do I there’s just many many things.

So what I do is I make sure that at the very beginning of our process I get really clear on what is your situation, what are your goals and challenges. We write those down. I keep those top of mind as we go through the process. And I while I have found other ways to streamline and systemize my business, when it comes to my 1 on 1 coaching, I don’t have a set plan for each session. It’s not like, hey, session 1 is this.

Week 2 is that. Step 3 is this. You know? It’s just way too rigid. And I think that in so many ways as an entrepreneur, you do learn to be flexible and agile.

That’s one of the the things that I’ve learned. And so you know, and it has to be said here too that structuring a 1 on 1 coaching program is very different from structuring a group coaching program. When when you’re with a group and doing group work, you do need structure. You know, it’s a very different thing. So yeah.

Now while there’s other ways I have found to streamline and systemize, I keep the session schedule, the session agenda pretty fluid. And we’re always working on foundational clarity but at the same time it’s also like okay, but what’s happening this week? What actions do we need to take this week? What opportunities are right in front of us? What prospects are you talking to?

How can I support you with that? And so there’s it’s just a very flexible process. Now in other ways I have standardized certain things. The the timeline is a great example. So at some point I said, okay I need to work with people for 4 months minimum.

So now that is what you get when you when you buy my signature program, either flavor. It’s 4 months to start, and then after that, you have the option to continue with me, and I have options to continue. And I’ll talk about that later. But you know this was an evolution for me. At first I didn’t really have the the confidence and the clarity and the experience to know that I need at least 4 months.

That’s just me, that’s my process and to cover all the things that I cover to get the outcome and the transformation that I’m after. And and to really serve clients in a way that honestly I I know that we need at least 4 months. I just know that now. You know even when people tell me that you know, oh I really just need to focus on this this, and this. I know that there are other topics underneath that.

I know other things are gonna come up because it has every single time. And, you know, I really stumbled around on this for a long time, and at one point, I tried to standardize it to 90 days and that was my program. But then I worried that, well, what if some people don’t wanna work with me for 3 months? Or what if, you know, this and that? And prospects would come to me sometimes and want something cheaper or quicker.

And I would just create custom proposals and custom plans. And it ended up being a lot of extra work and headaches for me. And it would end up feeling overwhelming for both me and the clients a lot of the time because I was trying to squeeze in 4 months of work into a fraction of the time which then yeah. So it just didn’t work. So this relates to the second major area or thing that I’ve learned that I wanted to share with you today.

And that is that these sorts of shorter coaching offers, these bite sized power hour, single session, intensives or VIP intensives and things like that just don’t work so well for me. It just, and they work beautifully for some people, for some coaches, and some of my clients. They work beautifully. For me, and I’ve experimented with it, you you have to try things sometimes to really understand it. And to understand what works for you and what doesn’t work for you.

And this just doesn’t fit my style as a coach. I like to go deep with people. I like to spend time with them and get to know them and their niche and work with them on the many different layers of their business brand and marketing. So so yeah. Now this doesn’t mean that I can’t have maybe a pop up offer for a limited time where I offer something more bite sized.

Or it doesn’t mean I can’t maybe offer a 1 on 1 session with me, a single session with me as an upsell. Right? I did this recently, and it worked out great. I ran a week long workshop to gain clarity on your q two business and marketing plan. So with a with a nice intimate group of people, I ran this week long experience.

And just for those people, I said to them, hey, if you also want to book an exclusive 1 on 1 session with me, you can do that. Here’s the link. Here’s the cost. And I make sure that we get clear on the agenda before we get into that call so we, you know, so that we’re clear, we maximize the time, and that worked really well. But it isn’t something that I offer on a regular basis as part of my normal offerings that you see on my on my website today.

Now the next thing I wanna share is 3 essential tools that I use in my coaching that I wasn’t always sure if they should be part of my package or offer. But today, I can confidently say that, yeah, these three things are essential to my way of working and getting results. So the first thing is using WhatsApp in between sessions. You can use WhatsApp or Voxer. So clients basically have the ability to send me audio messages or text messages anytime they want in between our sessions.

And this is a chance for them to ask questions, share moments if they’re having any kind of mindset blocks. You know, it’s just a way for me to check-in with people. And so every week, you know, I’m kind of in their ear a little bit, and there’s that accountability. There’s that feeling that, you know, hey. I I’m with you.

I’m in this with you, and it develops even greater trust between myself and the client. It’s a great way to address even more questions in between the sessions, especially quick questions. Right? So things that I have learned here is I sometimes need to draw the line with people and say, you know what? We need to just this is a topic that we actually need to discuss live.

It’s a deeper, more complex topic, and we need to talk this through. We’re not gonna create, like, complicated strategies over WhatsApp. Right? So that’s one thing. Another thing is really, really important which is drawing boundaries around this and being very clear around it.

So I have evolved to the point where I tell I now tell clients, I’m very clear about this, go ahead and message me anytime you want because I do work with people in different time zones, different parts of the world. Sometimes people are working on their business on a Sunday. That’s fine. You can send me a message anytime, but the only time that you’re gonna hear from me and the time that I’m gonna work on this stuff is Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. So at least that puts like a 3 day sort of container on it.

Yeah. And I also have set business hours, and they know what those are and things like that. So that’s really important if you do, but if you do offer this. But I can say to you, wow. This was like magic when I introduced this, and it just it up leveled the impact I was able to have with my clients by adding this essential tool.

The next thing is hands on support. So this is something that really aligns with me and my background and my expertise in, you know, being a hands on marketing communications professional for years decades. And and I do sort of bring this into my coaching and it is I felt insecure about it at first. Like, oh, a business coach shouldn’t be providing some editing suggestions on a social media post, for example. But then I finally came around to understanding that this kind of hands on support is so valuable because it’s one thing to give someone the strategy or the plan, but it’s entirely another thing to implement the plan and implement the strategy.

And a lot of this implementation comes quick and easy for me because it’s what I’ve been doing my entire career. My whole background is a as a marketer. So so, yeah, I can come in, and this is super valuable. And it’s actually a differentiator. And it’s something that I really own now, and I’ve I really talk about it on my website.

And whatever it is for you, you know, think about this for you. What what is that unique added value that you can bring? And maybe think about owning that even if it’s different, even if it’s not what your competitors are doing. Because you know the so so it’s the hands on support that I provide in looking at the actual, you know, hey, what’s going on with your LinkedIn headline thing, how to write an email newsletter. Let me teach a little bit.

Have you draft it because I’m not here to be your copywriter. But then I can come in, and I will come in and say, hey. You know what? You really need a call to action here, or why don’t you try this email subject line instead? And that’s the kind of special sauce and little spice that I add.

I shouldn’t say little because it’s it’s a big deal, and it it’s part of my unique added value. So think about that for yourself. Now the third thing that I consider to be an essential tool on my coaching is actually a task list. A pretty simple thing, but this is so key. And basically, I create not necessarily a comprehensive task list for every single thing that you need to do in your business, but related to the work that we’re doing together, if we’re working together, I will keep an updated task list.

So this helps us stay organized and decreases overwhelm, and it also just helps me make more progress in less time. Now earlier, I mentioned how I found certain ways to streamline and systemize my 1 on 1 coaching. And one of those ways is by recording a collection of videos and creating worksheets and guides behind the scenes. Now a couple things here. First of all, any coach can do this because no matter what kind of coaching you do, there’s gonna be certain pieces of your coaching process that you have to repeat again and again, certain questions and problems that you address again and again.

So this this saves time. And, when when I can say, hey, to a client, you know what? This week we’re gonna be working on, I don’t know, your your Instagram so go check out this guide that I have on how to optimize your Instagram bio. Right? Or maybe with another client we’re gonna be doing some competitive research.

I have a little quick 5 minute video on how to effectively go about competitive research. And I have a little Google Doc on this. And I can say, hey, go look at this. Go look at this guide or this this video. And so essentially what it amounts to is I’ve created a sort of private online course behind the scenes.

And one of the benefits then is that during the live coaching sessions, I don’t need to spend time on those things. And instead, I can answer questions and we can work through in a personalized way what’s going on for the client that week. Now you may love this idea, but let me caution you that this does not happen overnight, and I’m still building out my my resources and will always be because, you know, part of me would love to just stop working on my business for a month and just dive deep into all of this stuff because I love creating these kinds of evolutionary approach here. Take an take a evolutionary approach here. Take an organic approach where when you’re working with a particular client, if you have a little bit of an extra hour or 2 somewhere and you’re like, hey.

I need to address this with this client that I’m working with right now anyway. Why don’t I go ahead and create a resource on this, give it to that client, and then have it for future clients? And that’s exactly how I have created this library of materials over time. But, yeah, it doesn’t happen overnight. Now related to coaching business models, you may be familiar with the concept of creating an offer stack or the the value, the value ladder business model where basically you have low ticket offers, mid ticket offers leading up to your signature 1 on 1 program with exclusive access to you, and this is in this model the highest priced.

And this is the end game and the highest priced offer. But then what people don’t always talk about is what happens after that? After people have gone through my own 4 month signature program, I then present them with a set of private offers and options to continue to work with me. And here too, I’ve had to experiment quite a bit, and I’ve had to really see what people needed and wanted from me. At first, again, I was just kind of doing a lot of custom proposals and playing around with different things, and now I’ve really stabilized and standardized my options.

And I have a couple options for current clients and then I have a separate option for past clients that have worked with me but it’s been a year or 2 years or 3 years, right? It’s been a while. And they need 2 different things is what I’ve discovered because if someone hasn’t been working with me for for a while, I need some time up front to really talk through, okay what’s been going on since we last spoke, since we last worked together? What’s your situation now? Really assessing the business before moving to, okay, now here’s how we need to evolve.

Here are the next steps we need to take. And so, you know, I’ve really customized a 12 week program for those types of clients with a lot of session time in the 1st 4 weeks and then sort of going to a place of okay just meeting checking in for 45 minutes every other week. So this is this is where I’m getting into a lot of detail right now but this is just to tell you that it sometimes takes a while to figure this out. To figure out what exactly is needed and what’s going to be effective for different types of clients. I also you know for current clients where I’ve just finished the 4 months with them, I played around with some different things and what I found at first I was providing a lot of options, too many options, and it was confusing.

And I found that it was confusing people. So, you know, there’s a lot to be said for simplifying. And now I have a more simplified option where it’s like, hey here’s option A and option B. And option A is we continue for 4 weeks. You get one session during that week, but you still get all the WhatsApp support.

And the option b is just, hey, same thing, but you get 2 sessions within that 4 weeks. Keep it simple. You know? And and I also just allow people to to continue working with me in these 4 week cycles for as long as they want. You know, I I played around with, oh, if you sign on for 12 weeks and if you commit to this amount of time or 6 months then you get a discount and all that stuff.

And I think that that was just A, confusing and B, devaluing my time and my coaching. So sometimes simple is the way to go and keep it simple, you know. Speaking of simple, keep in mind, a simple business model can still make you just as much money as a more complicated one. You know, you might have one coach who has 6 different offers and another coach who has just 1, and they could be making the same amount of money. And if you are a beginner in business, I wouldn’t necessarily try to go out there and create 3 or 6 offers all at once.

You know, each offer really takes time. There’s some foundational clarity that you need with each offer. Then there’s maybe some validation you wanna do. There is creating the sales page and the behind the scenes materials and an admin that needs to be in place for each offer, and there’s marketing each offer. So keep it simple.

Take it step by step. And yeah. The last thing I wanna briefly touch on today is this question that you may be asking You know, should I, as a coach, add some passive digital products to my business suite, to my offer suite? Should I create an online course? And you know there there’s there’s a lot to talk about there.

I can tell you that for myself, I currently have 2 mini online courses on my website as well as one digital download. And for me in my business model, they’re not the focus. It’s kind of like my 1 on 1 coaching is my main dish, and these things are like a side dish. I don’t spend a lot of time on them or a lot of time marketing them. The majority of my revenue comes from my 1 on 1 coaching.

And then sometimes I’ll do the occasional, you know, workshop or special group event. But, you know, this this is something to get clear on. You know if you want to experiment with some some things like that, understand if this is gonna be the driver, the main dish of your revenue so to speak, or if it’s just a side dish. And for me, I knew that regardless of how much those thing things sell, that these were materials I needed and wanted to create anyway for my 1 on 1 coaching work. And they are, you know, really essential items in my 1 on 1 coaching.

So regardless of how much they ever sell and I don’t spend a lot of time marketing them, possibly I should market them a bit more, it it doesn’t really matter so much to me. And the thing that you here’s here’s what you really need to know about these kinds of offers and what you need to know especially about low ticket offers because typically when we’re talking about these types of passive products and online courses, they are 1 they’re under 1,000. They’re not they’re typically under 500 in fact. So they’re not big money makers. And if you wanna make money in your business, and don’t we all, that’s why we are in business because we wanna make money.

Yeah. We also wanna have impact, but we are in business to make money. When it comes to low ticket offers, the only way that this works is either having a large audience or a lot of money to spend on ads. Now let me just say that again because some of you want to go out and create all these offers and I’ll just sell all these €27 things and it’ll be fun and and whatever. But the only way that that’s gonna add up is is volume.

So the people that make this work, they have either a large audience, and what I mean by that is they have a large email list or they have a large following on social media or both. So they have a large pool of people that they can sell that low ticket thing to and then therefore pull in a ton of profit. Or the other thing that they have, they may have a lot of money in the bank to just throw at advertising because that’s the other way that you can get you can get your offer in front of a large volume of people is through spending money on ads. So my friends, this is what I wanna leave you with today that if you’re thinking about low ticket as part of your business model, know if it’s a main dish or a side dish, know that the only way that that’s gonna work is if you have a volume of people to put it in front of, and I hope that helps. Until next time.

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