Wendy McCallum (01:30)
Hello there, welcome back to The Coaching Edge. I'm Wendy McCallum, your host, and we are doing part two this week of a two-parter podcast episode. So last week's episode covered three pivotal times to invest in your coaching business, and we talked about the three most critical times where coaches really need to think seriously about putting some money into their business in terms of getting some more training and support so that they can actually...
grow and stay afloat as a business. And just a recap on those three times, we talked about the pre-launch or early launch days. So post-certification before you launch, or maybe you have already launched sort of softly, but you don't know what you're doing. So we're talking about the first year. Then we talked about that crisis of confidence time period, which happens for all coaches, usually somewhere between one and two years. It's often coaches who have not invested in their business at all.
for any support or strategy, have been reliant on whatever small amounts of support they may have gotten or little pieces of advice they might have been given in their certification or training, or they're just trying to do it using guidance that they can get from other coaches or social media but they haven't invested in themselves. And around that one to two year mark, they start to think, Maybe this isn't gonna work out for me.
I can't make any profit at this. I am struggling and I'm exhausted and I feel like I'm working in my business every hour of the day, but making no money. So that's the crisis of confidence time. Also a really great time to get some strategy support and advice. And then the other time that I highlighted in the first part of this podcast, which I do encourage you to go back and listen to, because we talked about this in great detail, like the whys of why that is a great time to be making an investment in you.
and your business. The third point is when people have experienced some growth. So they have gotten to a place where they've got some decent revenue coming in. It's probably not great, but it's enough and it's sort of plateaued and they feel like they're having to do an awful lot of work for that monthly revenue. So they're probably relatively busy with one-on-one clients at this point, but also still marketing, hustling and posting like crazy, trying to keep clients coming into that. Their revenue is not increasing.
month after month. It's just staying about the same. That's a really great time to think about investing in your business because that's a time where you can really start working on creating some scalable growth, some programs that are scalable, and also putting some systems in place in your business that help to create some space for you and some ease for you as the business owner. So that's what we talked about last time. This week we're talking about how to evaluate whether a specific business coaching program, course, coach, or mastermind is actually worth your money.
So every coach is going to spend money on business support at some point. We talked about that last time. We talked about how that isn't a if you spend, it's a when you spend. Because in order to be a successful business person, you need to learn how to build and grow a business. That is not something that is intuitive for most people. And most coaches do not have experience building small consultancy style businesses. So.
Every coach is going to spend money on their business at some point, but the key is learning how to invest smartly so it accelerates your growth instead of draining your confidence in your bank account. So let's talk first about the first thing that I think you need to do to decide whether a program that you're looking at is the right program for you. Now, just a reminder here, this could be any type of support or program in the.
business sphere. So it might be, for example, one-on-one business coaching. It could be some mastermind that you have been getting some marketing around or seeing posts around. It could be a very specific program that's addressing one component of business. It might be a more well sort of...
broader, more well-rounded programs, something like the BBB, that's a longer program for coaches, my business building bootcamp.
so many different things that could fall into this category. I'm gonna try to give you some general questions to ask yourself
how to figure out whether it's the right fit for you right now. And the first one, the first thing you really need to do is you have to identify what the gap is that you're trying to fill. I talk a lot about as coaches how we need to identify the gap for our clients and help fill that. But right now this is about what's the gap for you as a coach in terms of what you know, the skills that you have and the knowledge that you have around building this business. Where's the place where there's a bottleneck? Where's the place where you don't have the solutions or you don't know what to do next?
Where is the gap you're trying to fill? What do you actually need help with right now? That's the thing to ask yourself. Here are some of the places where you might need support. So it might be that you need some strategy support around things like pricing, your offer suite, how to launch a program, those types of things. It might be that you need some accountability. That's another thing that some of these programs can provide. So accountability in terms of staying consistent and focused and have somebody
who is actually following you through whatever the change or addition to your business is that you're trying to put in place right now. So somebody who's supporting you in that, maybe it's a group that's supporting you, maybe it's an individual coach. So accountability might be something that you need help with right now. Maybe you've got all the great ideas, but you just can't seem to get yourself going.
Maybe you are feeling really lonely and isolated. This happens a lot in solopreneurship. It's one of the reasons why I started the Coaching Edge podcast is because I wanted you to have a way to feel connected to me, but also to other coaches who listen to this podcast, who are out there working their tails off, trying to build businesses. So maybe you need community. Maybe you're looking to find some peers and it might be for connection or it might be for inspiration. I know that inside the BBB community, that's one of the really beautiful things about it is the
inspiration that other coaches get when they listen to what one coach is doing in their business or something that a coach has had the courage to try or something that's gone well for somebody. That can be really helpful. Maybe you need skills. Sometimes it's just a skills gap. And I've certainly had over the years many times where there's been a specific skill that I'm missing and I've thought, this is the thing I need to get better at. Case in point, copy. I wasn't very good at writing marketing copy. I've got a very specific writing style and it's
a lot of it comes from my past career as a lawyer. So it's very precise, you know, it's kind of boring and it doesn't work very well for copy. So I actually went and did a copywriting course at a certain point in time before I could afford to bring a copywriter on board, but I wanted to be better at writing my own copy. So is there a marketing skill, a scaling skill, a tech skill, maybe? Maybe you need to learn how to use, you know, a certain platform that you want to start using. It might be social media.
or it might be a course building platform or website building even, or maybe it's a coaching tool, a skill that you're missing. So maybe you're really struggling with your confidence as a coach and you're feeling like your skill set is too narrow and you can't support your clients when they pivot to another topic in a coaching session. That is something that you might wanna get some support around. In fact, that's the reason why I did that little CCSI program that I started last year, which is the...
Confident Coaching Skills Intensive. That's designed to fill that gap. So what is the gap you're trying to fill? Is it a strategy gap, an accountability gap, a community and connection gap, or a skills gap? You know, it's really easy to have like shiny object syndrome with all of this stuff and to end up signing up for a bunch of programs that you don't need, which can be one of the reasons why as much as it's important to invest in your business, if you over invest and you don't invest in the smart things, you can end up
having a really difficult time making profit that year because your expenses are so high. And it's not that those other programs won't be helpful to you. It's just they're not the thing you actually need right now. It's like buying winter boots when what you really need is an umbrella. Like they're both useful, but only one thing solves your problem, right? So you want to be looking for the thing that actually solves the problem you have right now, actually fills the gap you have now. So that's your first gut check.
when it comes to deciding on an investment in your business. It's does this program fill my biggest, most pressing gap? Okay. So for example, I see oftentimes in the BBB, people get confused about this. Coaches will come into the BBB and they'll be thinking that what they really need is to build a big audience. But the actual gap in learning for them is how to land their first paying clients before.
before they have a big audience or a big like social media following your newsletter list, right? So you have to really spend some time thinking about this one. What is the actual gap here? What's the perceived gap? What's the real gap? Make sure you've got that right. The second thing that you need to think about is what are the options out there to help me fill this gap? So this is where the research comes in, right? Like not every gap requires a $15,000 mastermind. I've seen so many coaches
invest in enormous programs, enormous ticket programs, not necessarily value programs, enormous value, but just a lot of money in things like, you know, fancy masterminds. When a thousand dollar fix maybe might be what they need, or a $5,000 program is the right fit. So
I want you to look at your options. Like what is out there that can help you solve this gap? This is what I did, for example, when I was looking for copywriting support. I went out and I looked at what can I find out there? And I found some free resources and I downloaded those and looked at those, but they were very sort of surface and not really that helpful to me. You know what I looked at? What books were available in terms of, you know, resources that I could read. I looked for like little mini courses and
and big courses and all the rest of it. I looked at the whole spectrum and what I ended up landing on was the copy cure, which was Marie Forleo's course. And it was a really great course for what I needed at the time. And it was within my budget. I think it was like probably a couple thousand dollars. So you got to look at what is the spectrum of options available for me and then figure out what the right one is for you now. Now don't fall into the trap of picking the cheapest, smallest one just because it's the cheapest one. I've done that before.
it's oftentimes not gonna give you really at all what you need. I would go look at reviews. That's the key thing to do. Like whenever I'm buying something, I'm looking for social proof that this has actually helped people. And what I'm looking for is people saying like, because of this program, I was able to accomplish this, right? So very specific return on their investment. I go and look at that and the good programs are all gonna have tons of social proof. So go and check out that.
I can think of times when smaller investments have actually been the thing that I needed. So I was just trying to figure out how to use, know, I did like a little mini course on like LinkedIn marketing, for example, that was exactly what I needed. Just really wasn't familiar with the platform and how it worked. And it was different from Instagram and Facebook. And I wanted to learn about that. So sometimes a little program is the right fit. But I have also definitely had times where the gap is a lot bigger and I needed to solve it with either
a medium ticket offer or a higher ticket offer, honestly. So the second gut check is could I fill this gap in a simpler, smaller or less expensive way? Now remember, it's not always a solution. Don't pick the cheapest just because it's the cheapest, but can I reasonably get the support, strategy, advice, knowledge, skills that I'm lacking through a smaller program? And again, look for social proof, make sure the testimonials are there. You want to, you
you want to make sure that whatever you're investing in is actually going to give you the value that you need from it. The third thing to look at is the return on your investment. And I really want you to try to calculate this. This is something I do every single time I'm trying to decide whether to invest in something in my business. The question I ask myself is how quickly and realistically can I make this money back in my business as a result of taking this program?
So what would it take, what would I have to do to cover the cost of this program? What would I have to do to cover the cost of this program and make a profit from investing in it? So every time I have joined any kind of course online or mastermind or any other sort of group like that, I have specifically asked, usually I ask that question when I am talking to whoever it is who's running the program.
So if I am actually on a discovery call or something about the program, which those higher ticket masterminds frankly should, I think always do, any higher ticket item should offer that opportunity. I will talk to anybody one-on-one who's interested in trying to figure out if the BBB is the right solution, for example. That is not a huge ticket item, but the BBB is about 5,000 US dollars. That's a big investment for newer coaches. And I want you to make sure that it's the right fit. And I'm always gonna make myself available for a one-on-one call.
other program providers and coaches should do the same thing. So I would ask them that question, like, what is the tangible value at the end of this program? What do course participants do at the end of this? What are they capable of? What kind of revenue are they capable of generating? What new things are they able to offer that they weren't able to offer before they started? What's the value in this? Have a really good think about that. I think if you cannot see the math, it's not an investment.
it's more of a like a hobby or like a little kind of maybe sometimes like fun thing to do. I really want you to think about the math on this. So for example, in the BBB, if you've ever been to an open house and someone's asked me this question, which I encourage people to ask because as I'm saying right now, it's a really solid question. How quickly can I make my investment back in this?
or what are the ways that people make their investment back in the BBB? I'll say, look, like the truth is two $2,500 one-on-one coaching sales that you weren't gonna get without the BBB. So you just need two more one-on-one clients and you will pay back your investment in the BBB.
but it's given what you learn in the BBB kind of a no brainer, like you will absolutely make that investment back because nobody who joins the BBB doesn't get more clients than they would have gotten if they hadn't been in the BBB and nobody gets less than $5,000 worth of revenue that they wouldn't have achieved if they hadn't joined the BBB. People actually make a lot more than that. So your...
Whoever it is you're buying this course from, whoever's running this course, selling this course, leading this program, should be able to help you with that. And you should absolutely be able to see the clear math on it. You should know what you need to do to break even, what you need to make a profit. So again, at the BBB, if you sell a 12 session coaching package at $2,500, it's two extra one-on-one clients. Or if you have a group program, it's, you that you sell it $500 for eight weeks, it's 10 more group clients. So can you realistically expect
to achieve that as a result of your investment in the BBB? The answer is yes, but in other programs, you wanna be looking at that as well. So the third check-in, gut check-in is, can I see a clear specific path to recouping my money? I'm gonna summarize all of these at the end, okay? Number four, this one's really important. Trust your gut.
trust your energy and make sure that this program and this person that's running this program is aligned with you. I have made this mistake guys, so I really wanted to talk about this one.
the return on investment, it's not just financial in these programs, it should also bring you a return in relation to your confidence and your clarity and also like a feeling of connection. As I've said, one of the great upsides of joining any kind of a group program
is that you get that connection. You meet other coaches. You feel like you're in a community again. You get to sort of crowdsource on ideas and hear from other people and get inspired and just not feel alone, which is a huge part of being a solopreneur coach. So your return on investment, we're not just talking about the dollars, although that is important to be able to do that math. You're also looking at how this program is gonna...
help with your confidence and your clarity and how those connections might support more revenue down the line. So ask things like, do I connect with the leader, whoever is running this program, the coach, the head of the mastermind? Does that person's teaching style resonate for me? Do I like the way they explain things that kind of like, know, people who I just generally enjoy being in the company of? Does this feel fun and energizing or does it feel like super heavy and overwhelming? Like what?
are you looking for in terms of the leader or the teacher or the coach in this program? And do you have that connection there? It's like dating, you know? The profile might look fantastic. The course might look terrific. It might look like it's filling all the gaps and this person might look like they've got all of the credentials to teach this thing or to run this thing.
But if there is no chemistry, it is not going to work for you. And unfortunately that has happened to me. I have ended up not trusting my gut on a couple things, ending up in expensive high ticket things and not particularly jiving or vibing with the person who's running the program. And that does not make for a great experience and it does not make for a great return on investment, trust me. So it's definitely really important that you...
you know who the person is who's running it. And again, that person, especially if it's a higher ticket thing, should be offering you an opportunity to connect with them before you invest, in my opinion. So the fourth investment gut check is, does this feel closest to both money and joy? It should feel good. It should feel joyful. It should feel funny. You should be excited about this thing that you're joining. Okay, and now I just wanna cover some common mistakes that coaches make with investments and just...
remind you of these things so that you can use these when you are deciding on your next investment. Okay, so one is people invest at a FOMO or hype instead of an actual gap. my gosh, I have seen this happen. And it is painful for me as a business coach to watch people jumping on the bandwagon of very high ticket courses that actually offer minimal value because there is some scarcity.
or like a FOMO thing happening. So I've seen this happen at the end of coaching gatherings or retreats that have been sort of turned into a sales pitch basically. And then at the end of it, there's an offer and it's a really expensive offer but it's only for this group of coaches and it's only at this price. you actually, if you get $3,000 off, you sign up before the end of the webinar and you get, if you joined before Monday, you also get this thing or whatever. And...
There's a lot of FOMO that happens in those because, and they'll say, there's only 30 spots available. And so people start to get just super hyped up and super stressed about missing out. Listen, if it's a really great opportunity and offer, I don't think it is gonna have that kind of scarcity to it
I'm looking for something that stood the test of time. I'm looking for something where the coach of the person running it is reasonable.
I'm looking for something where the person doesn't need to use high pressure sales tactics and scarcity and FOMO to get people to sign up for it. I'm looking for the real deal and you should be too. So be very careful not to buy purchase programs from the fear of missing out or scarcity instead of from an actual gap. Remember, do I actually have the problem that this thing is saying it's gonna solve? And is this actually the solution?
Another mistake that people make is assuming that a higher price program provides a higher value. That is absolutely hands down not true. I have invested in very high ticket masterminds and been so utterly disappointed in what I have gotten from that. And I have also invested in much lower ticket courses and programs online and been absolutely blown away at what I got. So do not assume that a higher price equals a higher value.
Do not assume that a lower price equals a lower value because that is just not true. Do your research, talk to people in the program, look at the social proof, look at the testimonials. If it's a great program and it is over delivering and is underpriced or priced very, very fairly, the testimonials are going to be abundant and they are going to reflect that. So I think any coach who's selling a program like this should be able to back it up with
all kinds of proof outside of their own marketing copy. So go look at the BBB page. There are oodles and oodles of testimonials from coaches who've gone through the BBB as to the value of that program and as to, know, just the content of the program and me as a coach. Like it's all over that landing page and that should be the case no matter what it is you are investing in. So go.
and look at that. The other thing that people do too often is jump into a program designed to help you scale before they actually have built the foundation to scale. I see this a lot. I see people joining programs that are designed to help you launch your next huge online course.
or create a membership community, but these coaches are not remotely ready for that. They haven't put enough time in with one-on-one coaching or in small groups to even know what it is they're good at and what the problem is they solve. And so they get into this course that's designed to help them scale. So it's really for a coach that's more like three to five years into business. And it's just kind of a waste of money because they're not ready for that yet. So.
That's an important thing to take note of. Like where am I in my business? Go back and listen to the first episode of this two-part episode, last week's episode, and you'll see me talking there about, listen to me talking about that particular issue, like the timing issue. Okay, my God, collecting certifications instead of building a business. You have heard me talk about this before, but I feel like I need to mention it regularly because it is such a pitfall for coaches.
where you feel like your business is kind of plateaued or stalling, you're not getting any traction, and you assume that the reason for that is because you're not a very good coach. And so you go and you spend a ton of money on another training or another certification. For some coaches, it's just a way to stay busy and to feel like they're doing something in their business. For some coaches, it's actually an avoidance tool. So it keeps them out of the hard work and sometimes scary work of getting out there and making conversations and selling.
making offers, but for a lot of us, it's just an underconfidence thing and we're just confused as to what it is we really need. It's so rarely the case that what you need is another certification. I wanna be really clear about that. So that's, guess, your fifth gut check. Am I excited because it's right for me or just because everyone else is doing it? Am I excited about this thing?
you know, because I'm afraid of missing out on this thing or is it actually the right thing for me? Okay, so just to recap, the first thing you need to do is identify the specific gap that you have in your business. Like what is the thing that I am missing? Is it a skill? Is it community? Is it accountability? Is it strategy? Is it support? What is it that I'm missing? what is the specific thing that I'm looking for to fill that gap?
The next thing you want to do is you want to explore all the options. Explore the free options, explore resources like books. Also look for one-on-one coaching options and group coaching options and evergreen, know, self-guided options. Look for all of those things so that you know what your choices are to help you fill this gap. Then with each of those, you're going to calculate that return on investment. So how quickly and what would it take for me to make back my investment? And then what is it going to require for me to actually...
profit from this thing, have this thing pay out. Now sometimes there's a long payout on these. You another thing we didn't talk about is that connection piece, like getting to know other coaches allows for some networking and that often leads to work down the line. I mean, if you look at just the BBB community, those coaches are supporting each other all the time. are, you know, guesting on each other's podcasts. They are sharing each other's programs and offers. They are doing, you know, Instagram lives on each other's pages. They are...
going in and coaching in each other's groups. Like they're doing that cross marketing and cross networking and that happens in any community of coaches that you join. So that's a value that often doesn't pay off for a while, but that's something to pay attention to as well there. So you're gonna calculate that ROI and then you're just gonna look at like, how does this feel like full big gut check here? Does this feel aligned to me? Do I like this person? Does this feel like somebody that I'm excited to work with?
And if you can answer yes to all of those, then it's probably a smart investment. So listen, hopefully that's helpful for you. If you're sitting right now at a place, maybe you're in one of those three pivotal times in your business that I talked about in the first part of this episode last week, and you're thinking it's time for me to invest in my business again, use those little, that series of gut checks that I gave you to help you evaluate what you need.
exactly what you're looking for and what the right fit is for you so that you can make a really thoughtful decision about that investment. And you know, if your gap is strategy, structure and community in the early years and the first five years of building your coaching business, that's exactly what the BBB is built for. Most of my members make their investment back with just a couple of clients. And there is an open house coming up on November 20th.
You can join through the link in the show notes or at wendymcallum.com forward slash pbb. If you're listening to this episode after November, no worries. There's going to be an open house coming up. Go through that same link and it'll tell you when the next open house is and you can sign up for that. That's an opportunity for you to meet me. I would love to meet you. No pressure, just a chance for you to get to know some of the members of the BBB, ask some questions and just get a sense of what it's like in that group and community. Again, it's that like, it helps with that whole.
alignment check, like is this the right thing for me? I do not want ever to have BB members join and then say this is not the right fit for me, this is not what I thought it was gonna be. That is the exact reason why I have open office hours like I do in the open houses. That's why you can at any time send me a note and set up a one-on-one call if you wanna chat about whether it's a good fit. And that's why I have a money back guarantee on it. If you join and you explore and you explore the library, come into a...
an office hours session and realize this isn't what you thought it was gonna be, money back, no questions asked. Any good program is gonna do that, guys. I really believe that. Any good, especially a higher ticket, medium ticket or higher ticket program should do that for you. So yeah, I'd love to see you at the next Open House if you wanna come out and join and I will see you next time on The Coaching Edge. Thanks again for listening.
