If you have an idea for an information product – ebook, report, course, audio or video series – why not consider offering that information to your customers through your own coaching program?
What is a coaching program?
It turns out that isn’t a simple question to answer, especially when you look into the marketplace and see almost every variation from q&a calls to masterfully planned, pre-prepared courses being offered as coaching programs.
The right answer is that your coaching program gives you the opportunity to go one step further when offering information to your marketplace – adding value through additional means of teaching the material, mixing a q&a element (either personal, telephone or email), and often including an interactive component in the case of a group coaching program rather than a 1:1 coaching program.
The advantages of offering a coaching program are many:
- You get to offer your top 10% customers advanced information they are ready to pay for…otherwise they will go to your competition
- You command higher prices and margins for coaching programs. Information delivered in an ebook typically sells for between $27-$47 while your coaching program can fetch you $397-$997 depending on how it is structured.
- It forces you to structure your information as a course – turning general information into a specific curriculum increases its value by at least a factor of 10
- Your coaching program can mean the difference between making a few thousand dollars each month and 10’s of thousands – a great way to really take your online business to the next level
- You get instant feedback from your market. I know several online marketers who operate coaching programs more to help them derive new ideas and content opportunities from their customers – the great part is you can accomplish both tasks at the same time – collect new ideas and instant feedback while making excellent profits.
What should your coaching program look like?
I offer 3 different levels of coaching…
1. A self-guided 6-week course on creating and marketing infoproducts
2. Group coaching where I support the group effort with teleseminars and call in days
3. 1:1 personal coaching which can be priced by the hour or in blocks of time.
What is most important to offering a successful coaching program is to have content prepared in advance.
For instance, you may offer a 6-week coaching program where you combine…
- 3-4 video tutorials each week
- A summary checklist
- A worksheet to be completed by the following week
- A q&a sheet
- A coaching call on Friday that deals with questions from the past week
In my coaching programs I make use of video, audio as well as various written material to assist teaching the core course – along with various methods of interactive communication such as discussion forums, audio updates, coaching calls and 1:1 coaching calls.
So, are you ready to offer your own coaching program?
If you have an idea for an information product topic and can put together a series of tutorials on the topic, then you are ready to offer your program. If you are confident of your program and ability to answer questions, then jump right in an beginning offering your coaching support right away. If you are not sure or want to test the waters first, then begin by offering your coaching to 1 or 2 individuals at a reduced cost where you can test the program first allowing you to make it even better before you launch your main program.
Do you have a question about offering information products or your own coaching program? Submit a comment and we’ll answer it here on the blog.
