Super simple group coaching model to implement
A group coaching program can be very difficult to implement or very easy to implement. Some of the common things I hear when recommending a client to start a group coaching are:
1) I don’t have time to talk to dozens of clients every week
2) I don’t have time to spend 5-10 hours a week writing lesson plans.
3) I can’t be available 24/7 via email
4) It just takes too long.
5) It’s a lot of work technically to do it.
And the thing is, they’re all valid, because on a lot of the older models, that’s how it might have worked.
In fact, maybe as you read that list, you’re thinking, yeah, that’s me, I want to start a training program, but it seems like too much work.
So let me ask you this:
What if I showed you a way where you could train 100 – 1000 clients in just 2 hours a week, and they would get almost the same results as working with you 1-1?
If that was cool, if that felt like, “yeah, I could do that,” then keep reading!
Because I’m going to show you a super simple training model that really works.
Before I get into it, I want to review one concept: and that is the idea that group coaching does not get the same results as 1-1 coaching.
The point is that the training itself is not what gives results.
The ACTION and implementation of their clients gives them results.
The main reason 1-1 coaching generally gets better results than group coaching is that with 1-1 coaching, the client feels compelled to finish their work before their next scheduled call.
How many times has your client said to you, “Yesterday I remembered that I hadn’t finished the assignment you gave me, and I thought about canceling today’s session, but I decided to work late at night to complete the job,” or something similar?
The thing is, if that client had been in group coaching, it probably wouldn’t have gotten the job done.
But is it really group coaching or motivating clients that gets the job done?
Your client needs to step up and do the job on their own. You are a trainer, not a babysitter. You are a coach, not a high school teacher. It is your clients responsibility to do the work. You need to learn to manage your time and learn to focus. You can teach him those things, but he has to.
You are a coach, not a personal assistant, personal planner, or daytimer.
Now here’s the thing, if you’re willing to limit yourself to helping only 20 clients at a time, when you have within you the ability to possibly change millions of lives (I mean, how many people NEED what you help?), then you probably shouldn’t do group coaching.
But what if you knew that there are 1000 people RIGHT NOW in your circles that you could significantly help, as long as THEY are personally responsible for their results?
So yes, 1-1 training gets better results. But it’s not for teaching (think about it, if you have 20 clients, over time you work with all of your clients on the same 95% of the material that you work on with everyone else, right?) So that means only 5% of his individually trained material is unique.
So why are you training 1-1 for the difference of 5%? Why not just do a group training session that teaches the 95%, then open the call for group Q&A, and anyone who needs a unique 5% solution can talk to you personally.
When you do that, do you open yourself up to being able to genuinely HELP 100-1000 people instead of limiting yourself to your own ability to deliver 20 hours (or less) of quality 1-1 each week?
(And before I give you the blueprint, let me just say this, you have maybe 100-1000 group coaching clients, PLUS 1-1 clients who really need one-on-one attention because they want to do much, much more than what you teach most of the others.) clients, and they really need more personal attention to go above and beyond your average client. They are willing to pay more for their time. And you are willing to train 2-5 1-1 clients at a time. And that’s fine. I think which however, is that most of your training can, and should, be done in a group setting – read on to see how easy it is).
Here is the model:
–> One group coaching call of 60 to 90 minutes per week.
On this call, you teach a topic for 45 minutes. The rest of the time is spent training, answering questions, etc. Clients learn EXACTLY what they need to learn, and they can talk to you like you are 1-1, but you are not teaching 1-1.
–> After the call, send a recording of the call to your customers via an automated response. This takes 5 minutes.
Each week, you record the 45 minutes of training you do and add it to the autoresponder campaign you’ve created for new customers, so all new customers are sequentially exposed to each lesson you’ve taught.
This allows him to literally double himself as he only teaches a subject once, and any time a client needs instruction on a subject already taught, he simply sends them to that recording.
And they can always come to the live call.
This total training program, with 100-1000 customers, only takes 60-90 minutes per week for actual delivery, plus about 10 minutes per week to queue emails into your autoresponder delivery to train customers. .
That’s less than 2 hours a week.
You can help hundreds of clients instead of 20.
It only takes you 2 hours a week instead of 20.
And if you REALLY want to work with 2-5 1-1 clients, you can.
Can you see how easy this can be?
It really can be that easy!
That’s what I do.
It’s what my clients do!
And you can too!
Now, maybe you have questions, like these:
1) Well, do I have to offer email access?
Answer: you can if you want. But you don’t have to (and with 1000 customers, you can’t possibly answer all of your emails, so with a lot of customers, no, if they want an answer to a question, they just have to come on the call [which they should come to anyway, right?]) That seems fine to me?
2) Do I offer access to Skype? I do not. Skype is very distracting. Skype is only useful to me for specific, pre-planned conversations, where Skype would be faster than the phone. But if you’re looking at your Skype mailbox 24/7, can you say DISTRAAAAACTION!
3) Do you do a webinar or teleseminar for delivery?
Answer: Here’s the thing: I often find that new trainers want to offer webinars for their training. They think it’s more personal. Then they spend 5 hours a week preparing a powerpoint and realize that 99% of everything they teach can be talked about instead of shown. If you REALLY have to show something, record what you want to show and send the recording before the call in an email. Have your customers watch the video before the live call. They can ask questions about whatever they want on the call.
Also, the webinar means you MUST be online for the call. It means you have to have a good internet signal. It means you have to transcode the recording, upload a bulky mp4 file, and let’s face it, that can take hours of your or your assistant’s time. PLUS, your client has to WATCH the video every week.
Instead, I use teleseminars. Many reasons.
1) I don’t have to prepare a powerpoint.
2) I don’t have to be online (I’ve made coaching calls from Costa Rica, on the road, in my car, walking in a neighborhood when I was out of town traveling and my car was at a store, from a ski resort, and many other places). With a teleseminar, I just call the dial-in number and voila, I’m on the call.
3) The recording is done automatically by my teleseminar provider. That means within 5 minutes of the end of the counseling call, I can email my counseling clients with the recording.
I don’t have to upload, download, transcode, handle 400MB, nothing.
If I don’t want to, I don’t have to think about my coaching call until next week.
The system is easy, when implemented in the way I just described.
You can easily train 100-1000 clients in one productive group training call, 2 hours a week of full participation from you, the entire program runs almost entirely on autopilot except for 2 hours a week from you.
And you have the rest of your week to live, to focus on getting new clients, and to truly enjoy the business life you thought you would have now!
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