There is much appeal to having an online, high-ticket coaching business.
One that charges a “premium” price for their services and does nothing else.
Using the traditional definition, this means a coaching business where you charge $3,000 to $10,000 for the coaching you provide for your clients.
Who wouldn’t want such a business? A business where, in theory, all you need to do is attract 10 clients per year to have a successful six figure business.
Well, here’s the truth.
You cannot grow a life coaching business with one offer no matter what the appeal is.
The coaches in the space who are selling this idea are full of rubbish.
Some of them are even saying that all you need is a four-funnel system.
Facebook Ad→Webinar→Conversation→Sign Up
But, they are keeping something from you.
This is not how they have grown their own business.
However, what they teach appeal to their prospective and venerable clients. They do a great job to hit on the pain point of the clients they attract. All of their prospective clients want to think that it’s truly possible to have a million dollar business that survives on just one offer alone.
Despite what these coaches tell their prospective clients, their own companies have multiple “up-sells,” many other complimentary offers, back-end offers, and several ways to bring in more clients—clients for which they don’t have to spend money using advertising.
In fact, I’ve written an exhaustive article that details four different ways these companies make millions of dollars giving out bad marketing advice that don’t follow themselves.
How to Grow Your Life Coaching Business
Jay Abraham, a “growth strategist” that has consulted for hundreds, if not thousands of businesses, taught me that there are only three ways to grow a business.
- You must increase your number of clients.
- You must increase your average transaction value per client, per sale.
- You must increase the repurchase frequency of each of your clients.
That’s it.
You can focus on doing just one of these, or all three simultaneously.
Let’s illustrate what Jay Abraham meant.
Let’s say that you followed the structure of the big name coaching businesses, and received an average of 2 “high ticket” or “premium” life coaching clients per month by following their four-step funnel process.
That would be a total of 24 clients per year.
Let’s further say that each of your clients paid you $3,000.
This means that your business would generate the following revenue in one year:
Number of clients/per year: 24
Average transaction per client/per year: $3,000
Repurchase frequency per client/per year: 1
Total revenue generated: 24 x $3,000 x 1 = $72,000
Even if you increased your one-time transaction fee to $5,000 per client, your revenue generated would only be $120,000. On the surface this seems amazing, but this is not a structure for growth. In this existing structure you can only change one element, the number of clients you generate, because your price is fixed and you’ll only get paid once per client.
If you’ve ever coached clients in a one-on-one or group setting, then you know that increasing the number of clients is not always ideal. It can be mentally draining, and the more clients you have the more time you take away from growing your coaching business. And most important, it takes time away your family or yourself.
Here’s another problem, you’ll have to market the same way every year to make the same amount, more or less, every year. If the way you gain clients are based only on a Facebook ad, then you’re setting your future up for failure. Facebook changes what and who you can target in your ads almost every quarter.
Oh, here’s another problem. Maybe the client you’re trying to reach can’t afford to pay $3,000 to $10,000 for your services. What do you do? You’ve already gotten your life coaching certification and are ready to help as many clients that you can, but your business is set up only to accept high-paying clients. Does this mean you should only get paid if you can find a $3,000 to $10,000 client? Is a six-figure income only a pipe dream?
Thinking you should ONLY have a one-on-one life coaching business is one-dimensional thinking.
Every business, especially a service-based “soleprenuer” business, should have what’s called a value ladder.
Introducing the Value Ladder
A value ladder consists of having a series of products in your business. Each product should solve the same type of problem that your business specializes in, delivered using different media modes and at different price points, for any client who has the same problem for which they need a solutions.
As you’ve already experienced, I’m sure, not every client is able to afford your services. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help them. Perhaps you can offer a book or a home study course that solves their problem.
If you don’t provide it, your competitor will. There should be no reason why you limit your life coaching offerings to a one-on-one or group coaching option. You have to and you must think so much bigger.
I want you to imagine the alternatives.
Think about a life coaching business that could adjust to each element within Abraham’s growth formula.
What if you started to focus on each of the following 3 ways to grow your life coaching business:
- What if you began increasing the number of your clients by having different products at different price points?
- What if you began increasing your average transaction value per client, per sale, by having interested clients buy not only your book but maybe an audio offering at the time of sale?
- What if you began increasing the repurchase frequency of each of your clients by having satisfied clients who purchased tangible products like your books, also purchase intangible services like your coaching?
Imagine the possibilities.
Imagine serving more clients at different price points with the same information but in different formats. Imagine having multiple products and services that each client can purchase when they can afford it and then ascend up your value ladder when they are ready and confident that you could help them with your coaching services. Image that each time they purchase your products they become more and more satisfied because you’ve helped them with a problem they were out to solve.
Let’s now look at how your life coaching business can grow, geometrically, with just a few products in your product line AND at lower prices:
Book: $10
Course: $300
Group Coaching: $500
One-on-one coaching: $1000
Number of clients who purchase your book/per year: 500
Number of clients who purchase your course/per year: 500
Number of clients who purchase your group coaching/per year: 50
Number of clients who purchase your one-on-one coaching: 24
Total number of clients served in one year: 1074
Total revenue generated: $204,000
Do you see what just happened there?
With the same effort, more or less, you would earn $132,000 more in revenue than if you had just 24 one-on-one life coaching clients at a higher price alone.
But here is another advantage you have when you put a system like a value ladder in place to serve more of these clients, more often, and with more value:
You can easily package your services and make even more offers!
This means that you can explode your life coaching business upward and beyond what you’ve ever imagined just by redefining what the term “high-ticket life coaching” really means.
So, let’s redefine the definition.
Instead of thinking one-dimensionally, having only one way to serve a few clients, create a business that has hundreds of ways to serve hundreds of clients, while also reserving life coaching services for those who can afford to pay “premium,” high-ticket coaching.
Why think one-dimensionally when you can grow a successful life coaching business multi-dimensionally?
Doesn’t a life coaching business like this sound much more impactful and appealing?
While it may seem intimidating to put all of these pieces in place, it’s not.
All you have to do is make the core of your content once, re-purpose it, and deliver it through a serious of different offerings.
Here are some ideas: Package a series of video or audio recordings. Make a couple eBooks from previous blog posts. Write a case study on how you helped a previous client deal with an issue that your core audience has.
Once you have your value ladder in place, your next step will be to place your products in a sales funnel that can be tracked, measured, and adjusted. You’ll want to be able to track how many people actually begin at the start of your value ladder and then make it all the way to the top. You can easily do this tracking using an online customer relationship management (CRM) system like Ontraport.
Question(s): How many offers do you currently have in your business? How often do your clients repurchase items you have? How do you get them to purchase more? If you don’t have multiple items to sell, what type of products can you immediately introduce into your business?