Do you offer coaching, consultancy and training and find yourself spending hours creating bespoke proposals every time a prospective client gets in touch?
Or perhaps you’d like to offer some kind of coaching, consultancy or training but you’re not sure what you should be offering and you keep procrastinating about it and never actually get anything done?
Or have you been asked to deliver some sort of coaching, consultancy or training but you’ve not followed up on those requests because you’re just not sure what to offer and how much to charge?
{Click on the player above to listen to the podcast episode and/or read on for a detailed overview. Scroll down to the bottom to read the show notes including all the links mentioned in this episode}.
Step one – Do your market research
The first step is to understand what your customers or clients are struggling with so that you can put a package together that will really help them.
Often you’ll find there’s a particular topic prospective clients ask you about all the time. If not the easiest way to find out what your ideal customers or clients are struggling with…is to ask them.
This is exactly what I did when I was putting together my new Build Your Audience coaching package.
If you don’t have a large social media following, make a list of five or ten ideal clients and ask for a quick call with them. Bonus: as you’re talking it through with them, they may even ask about working with you.
Got a good-sized following on social media…ask for feedback there. For example, I asked for feedback on LinkedIn for the draft version of Build Your Audience coaching package on LinkedIn, as I know that’s where my ideal clients hangout. Two people replied outlining exactly what they would want in my coaching program, including how many hours of coaching they would want and how frequently they’d want to see me, which was incredibly valuable.
And do keep a record of the conversations you have. If you can use the words and phrases your ideal clients use on your sales pages and/or in your marketing materials, they’ll be far more likely to buy from you (because they’ll feel you really understand their pain points).
So, this first step is all about doing your market research and making sure that you’re creating a coaching package that people actually want – not the one that you think they want.
Step two – Decide on a topic
If you’ve done your market research and taken time working through step one, this step should be easy.
Step three – Carry out an audit of existing materials
I work with so many coaches, consultants and experts who have already created some amazing resources – for example webinars, video tutorials, podcasts, checklists – but have never really thought about how to put them together into an online course or programme.
Carrying out an audit of your existing content can be a great way to highlight which content you’ve already created that would fit well in your new package – something you can offer to all your clients – which will add value and save you time.
Step four – Decide on your daily rates
Almost every coach, consultant or expert I talk to struggles with pricing.
While there are many approaches to setting your rates, one that works well for many is to start by looking at how many working days there are in the year. This generally works out at around 232 days (excluding weekends and bank holidays) if you’re in the UK – minus 20 days for holidays and sick days.
Then, divide this number by how much you want to earn. For example, if you want to earn £30,000 from your coaching or consulting a year, that’s £129 a day.
Now consider the preparation and research time it will take to put a day’s training/consultancy together plus travel time. You might also want to factor in time for marketing – plus the cost of any training that you’ve done that allows you to deliver that particular kind of training/consultancy. Your daily rate of £129 could actually rise to several hundred – or even into the thousands.
Consider the return on investment, too. How much more revenue will a company be able to generate as a result of your training? Think less about your day rate for delivery and more about what the transformation is worth to that company and factor this into your price.
You might even want to think about per person rates. And do remember most companies will actually have a training budget for each person. So if you train a group of ten people, how much value might each participant be able to add to that company as a result of your training. When you look at it that way, your £3k day rate could suddenly turn into £30k or even £300k. Remember you are selling the transformation, not the training/consultancy itself.
Step five – Writing your core offer
The next step in putting together a coaching/consultancy package, is to write a summary of what you’re offering that you can use in your marketing. This is typically around four sentences long, starts with a question that identifies your ideal customers and ends with a clear call-to-action e.g. ‘register here’ or ‘book your discovery call.’ I generally refer to this as your ‘core offer’.
Creating a clear core off before you even attempt to write a sales page, can save you tons of time in the long run.
There’s lots more information about this in my How to Write Awesome Sales Copy Course and there’s a whole class on how to do this in my membership community.
Step six – Creating your coaching/consultancy package
This is where you set out your coaching/consultancy packages and summarise what’s included in each.
I have a unique approach to this that I often compare to a set menu in a Chinese restaurant. These typically have set menu A, set menu B, and set menu C, rising in price per person (A being the least expensive and C the highest). You’ll often find the same ‘dishes’ in all three set menus, but menu C will typically contain more expensive ingredients than menu A.
To create your coaching package, get a sheet of paper, divide it into three columns, and then divide your services into options A, B, and C, each rising in price – just like the Chinese restaurant set menu. As you go across the columns, think about how you can add additional value. There is an example of this in my masterclass on how to create a coaching/consultancy package for your business.
There’s no reason why you can’t take your coaching programme for individuals or small groups and turn it into an offer for corporate clients. For example, I usually find that corporate clients are looking for the same things: content, strategy, research, training, coaching or done-for-you services. Typically they’ll only be looking for two or three of those things at one time (content, strategy and training) which is why I create consultancy packages around these three things. There is an example of this in my masterclass on how to create a coaching/consultancy package for your business.
Coaches, consultants and experts often tell me they couldn’t possibly create a coaching/consultancy package because all their clients are different. But this is just not true. When you can pinpoint the commonalities in the type of work you do and the things you get asked to do all the time, it’s actually really easy to create coaching/consultancy packages.
This will save you huge amounts of time and free you up to make more money.
Step seven – Create a legal agreement
Creating a legal agreement that can be adapted for each client is well worth doing. Not only will it save you time, it can also protect you and your business from late or non-payers.
I use templates from Suzanne Dibble’s Small Business Legal Academy. I’ve used her resources for many of my coaching agreements. For £100 a year you can access templates for many different legal agreements that you might need in your coaching/consultancy business and it’s definitely well worth the investment.
Step eight – Create a fair play agreement
Creating a document that sets out exactly what your clients should expect from you – and what you expect from them – can also help prevent problems with coaching/consultancy clients.
I’ve recently introduced fair play agreements for my membership and all my online courses. These include information on key things including my working hours, response times (from myself and my team), what’s included (and what isn’t) and how to get the most out of the programme.
Setting your expectations out from the beginning in this way can prevent problems further down the line and paves the way for a smooth working relationship.
You can see an example of one of my fair play agreements in my masterclass on how to create a coaching/consultancy package for your business.
Step nine – Prospect your leads
Next it’s time to road test your new package to see what works and highlight what doesn’t work so that you can make any necessary tweaks and changes.
At this stage it’s much more important to focus on your warmest leads – generally people you’ve already got a relationship with. A common mistake I see coaches, consultants and experts make when it comes to putting out new coaching offers is focusing on content marketing, email list building, guest blogging, podcast interviews, social media posts and speaking.
Whilst all of these things are important, it can take months for these kind of activities to convert into leads and sales.
Instead, focus on your warmest leads – generally people you already have a relationship with. This can be previous clients or people who’ve previously reached out to you but for some reason haven’t worked with you yet. Because you already have a relationship with these people, high-touch activities e.g. email, letter, or phone will work best.
Offering a special rate to road test your new coaching/consultancy package is a great way to get feedback and generate testimonials – all vital for the future success of your programme.
Step ten – Make the offer When the time comes to reach out and make the offer, it’s important to do it with confidence.
I see too many coaches, consultants and experts create awesome coaching/consultancy packages they are too afraid to sell.
When you’re reaching out to potential clients, it’s worth reminding yourself of the worst possible thing that can happen.
Someone says no to you.
Which is really not so bad is it?
Podcast show notes: Why it’s important to create coaching or consultancy packages (6:57)
How to do your market research (10:42)
How to repurpose your content (16:00)
How to set your prices (18:30)
How to create sales copy for your new coaching package (24:10)
How to create packages at different price points (27:10)
How to turn a coaching package into an offer for a corporate client (32:50)
Why you need a fair play agreement for all your packages (39:40)
How (and why) you should road test your package (41:55)
How to sell your coaching packages to cold, warm and hot leads (43:10)
Resources Episode 339: How to build an audience for an online course or membership
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