169 - Designing A Signature Coaching Offer
No matter what type of coach you are, your main goal is to find and help clients. And to achieve that, you need something valuable to offer them. Your offer isn't merely a 12-week program or a $3000 investment in personal growth. It's about providing the solution to their pains and problems!
In this episode, we’ll break down the dos and don’ts of crafting your unique coaching offer. Gain insights into seamlessly blending coaching and education, providing the right level of support, and setting up crystal-clear client onboarding and offboarding processes.
Discover the secret sauce to managing client expectations and building an offer that not only serves your clients but also fits your desired lifestyle. Be sure to listen until the end to find inspiration for crafting a coaching offer that truly shines!
👉 Create a profitable business that looks good and sets you up to be respected through the Fast Track Business Building Boutique Program
👉 Check out my FREE Canva Workshop and learn how to create stunning graphics for your coaching business!
Transcript
Preview: Your offer not only has to fit your clients, but it also has to fit you. Are you working the way that you want to work in your business? Does this offer help you reach the lifestyle that you desire? Does it fit comfortably in your schedule? Do you want to be answering text messages? Just because people are doing Voxer or emailing or texting or whatever they're doing, it doesn't mean you need to. Your coaching offer is unique to you. It delivers the result that you sell, and then it supports the lifestyle that you want to have
Intro: Hello, I'm Debbie Shadid, the host of the Life Coach Business Building podcast. If you are ready to have more clients in your life coach business, then you're in the right spot. Each week I'm gonna teach you super simple strategies to grow your business without feeling overwhelmed and without spending money on paid ads. If that sounds interesting. Stick around and let's get started.
Welcome to the podcast. We are moving right through the six pillars of the business building boutique. Now to refresh you pillar one, we talked about personal branding, really establishing that brand identity that you become known for that fits you personally. And that also really attracts your niche client.
In pillar 2, we talked about creating that client converting copy, whether that be your website message, your social media, your email marketing, any pieces that you use to communicate what it is you offer to your ideal client all need to be really compelling. And then pillar three, we're going to be talking today about crafting your unique coaching offer. Now, remember I talked to you about your offer is not 12 weeks and $3000. What your offer is to solve somebody's problem. Now, your problem that you solve has to match your marketing message. Can you see how all of this fits together?
So we first want to start by really defining your process. And let me say that's for private coaching or for group coaching. You want to map out the path to the result that you are saying you're going to help your client get that you're talking about in your marketing message on social media, or wherever you market your business. You want to think through what each session will look like. You want to decide, are you teaching, which almost all of you guys are. I think sometimes we forget that we decide we're going to be coaches and what we want to do is just coach. But the truth is your clients probably need to be educated along the way, even if it's mindset coaching only because they need to understand some of the concepts of coaching.
Now, many of you guys have niches where there does need to be some explanation or some teaching along the way. So you want to decide. If I coach somebody for 50 minutes, Am I going to teach for 20 minutes or maybe talk about the concept for 20 minutes? And the client doesn't have to know exactly what it is, but maybe you say, you know, this week, what I want to talk to you about is boundaries. That would be a concept from the life coach school that I would be explaining.
Now you would just start talking about boundaries in your session. You wouldn't have to explain it. Or if you have group coaching, maybe you'd do a slide presentation. I like to do slides. I like to actually have a presentation, maybe you'd have a worksheet or a checklist or a guide that you send your client about boundaries before your session and you decide every coaching session. I'm going to spend about 20 minutes sort of talking about the concept. And then I'm going to coach for 30 minutes.
You also want to figure out what materials are going to follow the session. Are you going to track what's happening for your client? Maybe you're going to be an accountability kind of coach, which means that you would be tracking what's happening for your clients. Maybe you're going to take notes for your clients, and you're going to share the three takeaways and their next steps. All of this is part of what you create that works for your unique offer.
You want to decide what level of support you're going to provide your clients. How available are you going to be? Many of the coaches now are offering Voxer support. So that is audio or video support in between sessions. In fact, some coaches are offering Voxer coaching only, which totally blows my mind that you just communicate with your coach just via Voxer, but look, anything is possible.
Now, maybe you want to offer email connecting between sessions or maybe even text messaging. Now, let me just give you a quick pointer. If you're going to do text messaging, I highly recommend that you do not give your client your personal cell phone number. What I recommend that you do is that you get a free Google phone number and that you give your client your Google phone number. You can have the app right on your phone and on your computer. And that way your business and your personal life are separated. You also want to think about your client onboarding and offboarding process. So that means when a client begins coaching with you, again, whether it's group or private, what do they need to know?
How are you going to deliver the information that they need? Are you going to have a welcome letter that's already pre written that is automatically delivered to them? Are you going to maybe have a video which is teaching them about a few concepts that might be useful for your coaching? Maybe you're going to have a guide. I know for me, I initially send a welcome email. I explained to all of my clients, you're going to have access to the Facebook group. Here's the schedule. Here's how you download the schedule to your calendar. And here is your guidebook. You know, that 167 page guidebook I've been talking about? They get the guidebook and I tell them how to utilize my materials. That is part of my onboarding process. If I have not had a consultation with a client, I also like to have some kind of communication privately with my client before we get started, because I want to know where somebody is at in their business so that I can give specific steps on what to do next immediately. So what information do you need to gather? You also can have a form. We have a form in ClickUp that goes out to the client and I get things like their address, their birthday, a headshot, you know, a photo so I could use it for marketing purposes, maybe a bio about them, some additional information that helps me know about you.
So what would you like to know from your clients? I also love to know what other coaches have you worked with? What software do you use? That helps me know where you need to go in the coaching program and also helps me know what I need to be teaching you. So what does your client need to have from you? Are you going to send a gift? Let me just tell you, I wish I sent gifts and I don't. I don't send gifts. I love sending gifts, but honestly, it turned out to be a lot of work. And it was taking away from time that I could spend with clients. So I need to have an assistant or somebody who takes care of that because I think gifts are super fun. So do you want to do that? I know that I love to receive something special from a coach. It feels really nice. I think it would be great to have a present for your birthday. Really fantastic to have some kind of gift all along the way, actually. So what would you like to do for your clients? What do they need from you? it's just important to ask yourself that. You want to think about how your client will get the best results from you? And what level of support do they need to get the results that you are selling? You want to understand what your client needs to get acclimated to your coaching.
All right, that's the onboarding process. Let's talk now about the offboarding process. Again, this is all part of your offer. You build this into the steps of your offer. So, when somebody comes to work with me, the 1st thing that happens is they get this welcome onboarding, then they go into step one, which is personal branding. Then they go into step two. So I have steps that I take my clients through and those steps, when they go through those, get you to the result where you know how to market your business and you know how to get clients and you know how to have a profitable coaching business. So what do you need to do in the onboarding process?
And now let's talk about the offboarding process. When my clients get done with me, they get close to the end. They get a 30 day notice email that is automatically sent and they get an invitation to have a private coaching call with me. The objective of that coaching call is to wrap up our program and to ensure that everybody knows what their plan of action is for the next few months. I do not want people leaving me without knowing what to do. So I say, Hey, here's what you need to do. I've been thinking about you. This is where you're at in your business. and I also extend an invitation for people to stay and continue working with me. So what will you do as you onboard clients and as you off board clients as part of your coaching offer?
I want to talk to you a little bit about results, the results of your offer that you provide. Now, depending on your coaching, I want to caution you to not over promise results because what I want you to know is you're only responsible for what you can do. Sometimes my weight loss coaching clients will feel bad over the results their clients did not get. If you've promised a client, they're gonna lose a certain amount of weight when they work with you, that might be a problem. Why? Because you're not standing in their kitchen. You have no way of knowing what is going on with their hormones, what's going on with their metabolism. You have no way of knowing if they're moving their body. So I would be careful about the results that you promise. I do not promise that you're going to make a certain dollar amount when you work with me. What I do promise is that I'm going to be there. I'm going to tell you what to do. I'm going to show you how to do it. I'm going to answer all your questions. And what I can say for sure is that the process that I take clients through is proven. I have had hundreds of clients go through this same exact process in all kinds of businesses.
And most recently, at least a couple of hundred coaches go through my process. That's what I can promise. So you wanna think about what that would be for you? What is the result? And let me just say the only result your client gets is a heightened awareness about something. Maybe they get peace of mind, maybe they get tools to be able to better manage their anxiety. So really consider the results. You also want to know why you are selling this offer. Now, that means you really have to be in touch with what your client needs. Does this offer really fit your client's needs?
Does it fit your client's needs time wise? Like, do they have enough time to do what it is you have mapped out? Are they available in the hours that you want to work? Can they do the process that you want to take them through in the amount of time that your offer is mapped out for? I want to make sure that when you map out your offer, the steps that you need to do to get somebody to the result, I want to make sure that you allow time for them to have setbacks, for them to have confusion, doubt, overwhelm, whatever it is, which will slow their progress as they walk through the steps in your offer. So make sure you allow enough time.
I had a client the other day who said her offer felt like it was going to be too many weeks. And in fact, it was maybe going to be 16 weeks, which is not long. But she said, maybe I'll sell parts of my process. Like part one is four weeks and part two is another three weeks. And part four, I said, Oh my gosh, no. Why would you sell somebody only part of a solution? So make sure you check with yourself. Are you selling a total solution and whatever the amount of weeks is you guys, that is the right amount of weeks to get your client to the result that you promise.
The other piece that I want to mention is your offer not only has to fit your clients, but it also has to fit you. Are you working the way that you want to work in your business? Does this offer help you reach the lifestyle that you desire? Does it fit comfortably in your schedule? Do you want to be answering text messages? Just because people are doing Voxer or emailing or texting or whatever they're doing, it doesn't mean you need to. Your coaching offer is unique to you. It delivers the result that you sell, and then it supports the lifestyle that you want to have. Are you able to do that?
That is it for today, you guys. You've got a lot to think about with your offer. I cannot wait to talk to you next week because we're going to talk about streamlining your processes in your business so that you can have a simple business that is profitable. How does that sound? All right, guys, I will see you next week. Have an amazing one. Talk to you very soon. Bye bye.
Outro: Okay, ladies, that is it for today. Before we go, I want to invite you to head over to debbieshadid.com. I have this incredible Canva training, specifically designed for life coaches where I'm gonna teach you how to use Canva to create beautiful graphics to market your life coaching. All right. Have an amazing week. I'll talk to you very soon. Bye bye.