It may surprise many folks to hear me say that I love the coaching business model. It can be an incredibly high impact offering that helps your clients speed up their learning curve and get results faster. And, if you’re delivering results for your clients hopefully that’s also translating into earnings. So, given that I like this product and business model why have I decided to change my product offerings? In this episode, I breakdown why I’m making the switch and some things to consider when building out your products and offering.
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Show Resource
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Show Notes
I’ve loved my experiences being coached in a new skill, technique or mindset. I’ve paid for high end coaching (cash), less expensive coaching, courses, books, conferences and other tools to help me cut through the noise and get to the results that I wanted to achieve faster.
Each time I tried to launch my group coaching program it just didn’t feel 100% like me. A few years ago, the issue was money mindset. I was nervous to charge the money. Did I have enough consistent results to be able to help people get the results they paid for?
Imposter syndrome also reared its ugly head.
I would then go back to the drawing board and try again. This time, though, I felt great about the pricing. Imposter Syndrome wasn’t an issue, I’m a freaking badass. I also had plenty of consistent results to help my clients achieve the results that they were paying for.
What in the hell was my problem?
I decided to take some time off of working on my business during the Spring of 2022 and just take things easy and see what would come to me. I attended Podcast Movement Evolutions 2022 in Los Angeles and kicked ass and I allowed myself to really think about why I was so unenthusiastic about my coaching program.
I finally figured out that there were 5 problems that I finally figured out that I was struggling with. I just wasn’t as excited as I needed to be in order to launch a coaching program.
The 5 Problems I Was Struggling With
- Mind the Gap-I felt like there was a gap in the client journey within my business. What I mean is that there wasn’t a lower ticket product that people could purchase from me before opting for my Make Money with Ebooks course and then transition to a high ticket product. For me, I felt like that was a huge gap in my offerings.It was like “Hey, I have free content such as workshops, podcast episodes, etc. and you can buy my course if you want to write a book and then spend $3,000 with me. It just felt a little off.”
- I was tired-My energy is just picking up after all of the craziness of the past 2 going on 3 years. I even stopped selling my course because I just didn’t have the energy to work with clients until very recently.
- Was this the right fit? This felt like a huge misalignment of mission and purpose for me. Because of that gap in offerings, I felt like my potential clients who had expressed that they wanted to work with me were potentially being forced to make a spending decision that they may or may not have the money for. I just didn’t want to create a business eco-system that inadvertantly went against my goals of access and social justice.
- Mission and goal clarity-My end goal has become clearer. I wanted to uplift and support as many online entrepreneurs as possible and I didn’t want money to price people out of my business ecosystem. Or, influence them to make a potentially harmful financial decision.
- The most important question I had to ask myself was the following: What will my customer experience be with me? Lifetime experience
What’s Next?
I’m in the beginning stages of fleshing out my membership program. I’m excited to work with my membership community on an ongoing basis helping them build out online businesses with impact. What does this membership program look like?
The Basic Framework:
- Developing online brands that do the following:
- Stay true to your belief systems
- Attract projects and partnerships
- Collaborate vs. compete
- Get the speaking gigs
- Create products that serve
- Create products that help others
- Build consistent ongoing revenue
- Get paid more
- Connect with cool opportunities that the The Brand Building Lab Membership Community shares with one another
These are a few of the content pieces that I’m looking to work on in the membership. I should also mention that I’m not anti high-ticket coaching. I will revisit the idea of a group coaching program at another time. But, it’s clear to me that is not where my heart is at right now. The lesson that I learned from this is that just because other people are doing something that doesn’t mean that it’s the right fit for your business or your brand.
The client buying journey is an important part of building a long-term sustainable business. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have a gap in offerings, it just means that you have to be very comfortable about the offerings that you have.
Why a Membership Model?
I did want to share why I like the membership model.
- Help more online creators develop and grow sustainable businesses with impact.
- I’m able to provide ongoing access to me to more people.
- Memberships allow folks to learn at a slower pace
- It’s incredibly affordable. People can do a 5-8 hour side-hustle once a month and afford my membership at the current price points that I’m looking at.
- Members can have a lower ticket product experience with me and become warm leads for a higher ticket product if I decide to go that route. Higher ticket products don’t necessarily mean coaching. Those products could be:
- Courses
- Webinars
- In-person events
- Recurring revenue in my business-Before COVID, I’d spent a lot of time working on building passive income in my business. This focus was a lifesaver when COVID hit and business changed. Building out recurring revenue is a huge part of my business focus moving forward.
- I think it will be fun! I can’t wait to support and learn about the unique businesses being developed to serve communities that I might not even be aware of.
Ultimately, the whole of this podcast is to share that sometimes a product isn’t the right fit. For whatever reason, even though you want it to be. I’m glad that I finally paid attention to the resistance that I kept experiencing every time I tried to launch the coaching product.
Have you experienced this type of issue in your business before?
Interested in The Brand Building Lab Membership Experience?
- You can DM me on Twitter @MichLovesMoney
- Email me at: michelleismoneyhungry@gmail.com (Subject line-The Brand Building Lab Membership Experience)