5 Steps To Launch Your Services Online: Group Coaching
So maybe you are finding yourself in a place where your company is ready to scale, and you’ve reached capacity.
CONGRATULATIONS!
This a great opportunity for you to continue to reach your established customers AND gain more customers by launching group group coaching services.
When talking about group coaching, it's important to differentiate. This is actually for those of you who want to host a group where each individual in the group has their own story and their own track.
Your clients still all have similar goals, and you still have to outline expectations for any group you launch, but each person is creating their own reality out of the instruction that you are giving.
And I LOVE this topic because my favorite thing to do is to connect with people live in a group.
There's so much fire and passion that goes into this type of coaching session. And people start talking and inspiring each other. It is one of the best ways to coach people.
Every coach’s experience is different, but it's one of my favorite things to do. To see this kind of interaction happen based on the leadership that I give to a group of women entrepreneurs is really incredible.
So if you are the type of business leader that loves a community and loves mentoring and inspiring others, then a group program could be a really excellent business model for you.
And you know that the sky's the limit, and I want to provide you with an easy way to get this going faster than you could have imagined.
So let’s get the party started, shall we?
Determine the purpose of your group.
Now there are generally two different types of groups that you can think about creating.
The first one is an instructional group. This is really where you are teaching strategies so people can take them and make them their own, apply them to their own lives or their own business, and then move forward.
The other type of group coaching is community based. Here you're actually creating a group for people to work together and connect with each other over the similarity that they have in the topics you are leading them with.
Now most programs actually contain an aspect of both types of groups in that the structure is to create a community component and an after burn effect for members to take action and get results.
So when you decide on the type of group, the natural next step is to answer the following questions:
- What is the purpose of the group going to be?
- Is it strictly for instruction or is it a community-based group?
- What should people expect within the group?
- How will people become part of the group?
- How should you set this group up for success?
Got your answers? Let’s move on to step two.
Choose your platform.
In other words, where is your group going to live? There are so many options, but let’s get the first one and the most obvious one out of the way.
I hate Facebook groups, but I also have a Facebook group because people are already there all the time. So it makes sense to capitalize on something they’re naturally doing everyday anyway.
Another option which is doing a great job in competing with Facebook is Mighty Networks.
Mighty Networks is a super rad app. I’ve been part of Mighty Networks groups, and it's so nice because it gives me a push notification on the sleep screen of my phone when somebody has posted to me.
I can set up my notifications in that way instead of having to scroll through all my notifications from my sister and my cousin. It's perfect for people like me who have at least 10 squirrel moments every single day.
Needless to say, it’s really hard for me to stay focused. That's why I love this option, and for me it's a great way of creating topics and taking people outside of really, the cluster you-know-what that happens inside Facebook.
The downfall of Mighty Networks is there is no live streaming capability, and that's one of the reasons why I'm still on Facebook, and I know that you might love this, too.
So just keep this in mind and how you want to connect with your group. I love being able to pick up my phone, click the go-live button, and just be able to talk to hey how's everybody doing today.
If you’ve been hanging out with me for any length of time, you’ve heard me mention Zoom. There's Zoom meeting and there's Zoom webinar, and these are great options to host your coaching sessions.
They both have totally different functions. So do a little bit of research. Decide which one of those will best serve the format and purpose of your group coaching.
Google Hangouts is another option for your group. I will admit I just attended my very first Google Hangout recently, and I thought it would be a lot harder to get into. There was a meeting that I wanted to attend for women startups here in Colorado.
I didn't like the fact that I couldn't see everybody like in a Zoom platform, but it was easy for me to get on, and it was clearly integrated with my Google business email. So Hangouts may be a good first step for your community.
Another option is Crowdcast. I've used Crowdcast numerous times. It has a great integration feature where you can see people's live chat online, and I will be honest here; I have experienced several tech problems when I’ve tried to use it.
But you know what ladies, that could just be me because I swear there's like some magnetic field around me that if software or tech is going to break, it will break at some point in time on my watch.
So it definitely could just be me. I love the way the platform works; I love the way it's set up; and I have the green room function. It may be the perfect option for you.
I wanted to give you some ideas on software because these are the boards and the foundation of your house.
I can’t stress this enough. The software that you choose will make or break your business, and it's not that it's the software itself.
It's how you use the software and how you need it to function, why you've chosen a software, and frankly whether or not you know how to use it, and if it's easy for you.
Create a schedule.
It's important that you have a set schedule, and I bet if you’re here, you're a planner like I am. I geek out on my calendar across the wall, and I won't commit to anything unless I know that I can fit it in my calendar.
If those are the type of people you're serving, then you want to make sure that you're prepared and that you have a schedule of your coaching sessions and your events set in place.
Some of the platforms we talked about have it built-in where you can schedule your meetings in advance, like Zoom for instance.
If you choose to host your online group coaching in a private Facebook group, you can create scheduled events.
Make sure you have a place where people can easily sign up for your events, AND (this is a biggie) have a software that gives them notifications and reminders to show up.
Because just because people sign up doesn't mean people show up. And at the end of the day we want people to show up.
By creating a schedule and making it easy for people to register and easy for them to know what's coming up. The more simple you lay out your program, the more money you are going to make, and the more people you are going to enroll.
Decide how you are gonna get your money, honey!
You gotta love what you do but you gotta make money. So decide how you’re going to bill. Will you bill members once and they get unlimited access to events or will you set up a subscription and that’s charged once a week or every other week?
And how you lay out your program will dictate a payment schedule. Just know that we want it to be easy for people to give you money, Amen? Amen!
Keep in mind that many platforms do not have a way to receive money. Now this is a great advantage of Mighty Networks, and another reason why I love it... because you can actually receive money.
The most common payment processors are Stripe, PayPal, and Squareup to send one-time payments.
If you're looking for more of a subscription billing plan then Stripe and PayPal are your options as they have those sort of payment capabilities.
The most important thing is to make sure you know how you are going to charge people, and make sure it's EASY for them to pay you.
Make sure that the experience of someone going online to register and pay you depicts the experience that you want to give your customers within the group coaching itself.
You want the whole entire process aligned with your branding and the way you want your customers to feel when they start working with you.
Integrate an email marketing software.
The last thing I just wanted to touch on email marketing. This is not your regular email. It’s a CRM which is a client relations management system, and it’s automated.
This means that when somebody signs up for your group coaching program, they get automatic emails.
This is how to integrate artificial intelligence into your online business. The software knows somebody signed up, and then the software sends them an automatic email.
It's written by you, and it’s super personal thanking them for joining whatever program that you're doing and letting them know what to look forward to.
In a perfect world we want this software to send them a couple of different emails reminding them of the upcoming meetings and helping them get onto your platform.
Your email marketing needs to create a relationship with them to walk them through the on boarding process and into your program with super baby steps so that they feel taken care of the second they pay.
The last thing you want is for someone to have momentary panic of buyer remorse when they're like, “Oh my gosh what have I just done?”
You want them to immediately get an email that says, “I'm so glad that you're here. I can't wait to work with you. I can't wait for you to join our program. This is what you can expect. This is where you can go with questions. We’re here for you. We understand what you are looking for, and we have paved the way for you to have an amazing experience in my group.”
So go and source an email marketing manager, and make sure it connects and integrates with your community platform of choice.
There’s no one-size-fits-all.
It’s like making a cake. There's a thousand different things that you can put into your setup to make a customized plan for you.
So far based on if you are needing to have a platform where you could deliver content, have a schedule that you can post, have a way to bill, and have notifications go out then Mighty Networks is the way to go. It’s the gold star.
Again, I can't use it because I really appreciate being able to go live with my community
I'm willing to piecemeal other parts of software together so that I can still go live with my community, but this might not be a big deal for you.
However you decide to move forward with group coaching, I always want you to have a business model where you're happy and where you thrive at what you're doing.
Because that's going to make you even better at what you already are and your area of expertise, and that’s what creates raving fans who are sharing how great it is to work with you over and over and over again.
And if you need more help and more guidance, don’t go it alone. Check out the podcast website; it's really cool. It's a whole business resource packed with free business trainings that most business coaches charge $2,000 for. It's a huge database just for you. Cruise over to www.sweetlifepodcast.com, and you can grab all the resources you need. My gift to you!
