Wendy (00:38)
You have an idea, maybe a really great idea. It might be a group program or a course, a membership, a retreat. Maybe it's a VIP day. It's something you've been thinking about for months, maybe even years. Maybe it lives in a Google document somewhere, or it's just taking up a bunch of space in your head. Maybe it's in that vault that.
Wendy (01:04)
Area where your ideas go to wait indefinitely. For me, it's a whiteboard that sits propped up behind my laptop on my desk. Whatever this idea is, you keep coming back to it, but you haven't built it yet. And you're not totally sure if you should. Today I want to help you figure that out because sometimes the idea is a really good next step, and sometimes it's just a shiny distraction that's keeping you from selling what you already have. And I want to help you sort out.
Wendy (01:32)
which one yours is. Okay,
Wendy (01:36)
welcome back to the coaching edge. I'm your host, Wendy McCallum. We're gonna talk about the idea that won't leave you alone today. We're gonna talk about the offer that you haven't built yet and how to know whether you should. So most coaches have one of these. I I actually often have more than one living kind of rent-free in my head usually and also like I said in what I call the vault, which is my list of ideas that I just don't feel like I have
Wendy (02:01)
either the capacity for right now or I don't have it quite figured out enough yet to actually take action on it. and this is the offer that you keep thinking about. It might come up in the shower, it comes up on walks. For me it's always when I'm on vacations, you know, whenever I have some quiet, some downtime, I start thinking about it. I can see it. I know what the structure is, I know what the transformation is that it's going to help people affect. I know exactly who it's for, but I haven't built it yet.
Wendy (02:29)
And I know you have one too. it stays in the idea phase. We tweak it mentally, you know, we we come up with all kinds of new ideas when we're out for long walks. sometimes months, even years pass and we're still thinking about this idea. Why does it not materialize for us? Well, usually there's a component of fear there for us. So is this gonna actually work? And if it does work, what am I gonna do with it if it does?
Wendy (02:55)
Maybe we don't quite know how to build it. We don't know exactly what the structure of it is going to be, or it needs to be built on a platform that we haven't used before and feel a little bit nervous around. we may already feel like we're really busy with existing offers, or we've got that perfectionism thing coming into play, which is, I think, almost always there the coaches that I support, this idea that it needs to be ready and really dialed in before we actually do something with it. And then of course there's always the fear.
Wendy (03:23)
What if somebody doesn't, what if no one wants to buy this thing? Now, there is a cost to sitting on these ideas. and I think we need to get clear on that because I think it's important to be weighing that in. and that is that we can spend a lot of mental energy on something that doesn't exist yet. it can also lead to guilt sometimes for not doing the thing that we know we could do or want to do.
Wendy (03:44)
and I think there's also like an element of opportunity cost here, like the sitting on an idea, and this is something that actually really helps me. This idea of like, what am I missing out on by not doing it now? So by waiting for another year, what am I potentially losing? Well, I'm losing a year of momentum, I'm using a I'm losing a year of building the marketing, I'm using losing a year of revenue from this program. And I think
Wendy (04:12)
that can also be helpful sometimes in helping you actually get into a place of action or just like really abandoning the idea for now. So thinking about that. I think about the coaching edge actually, this podcast. And I remember having that conversation with myself when I was trying to decide whether to start the podcast in the fall that I started it in. And if you listened to last week's episode, you know that I actually had another podcast going at the same time. So I was actually making six episodes a month.
Wendy (04:40)
between the two podcasts. And I remember thinking like maybe I should just wait for another year to do this. But I thought, look, if you wait another year, you're going to lose a whole year of the momentum of building a podcast. Podcasts take a while to catch on. They take a while to build a following and an audience for. And if I had waited another year, I'd be a whole year behind. And the momentum that is currently coming to me from this podcast, the number of people who listen to it all over the world and the
Wendy (05:09)
audience that I've built and everything that comes from that, I'd be a year behind on that if I'd waited. So just, you know, remember that there is a cost to doing nothing with a really great idea. So what I wanted to try to help you work through in this podcast episode is is it actually time for me to take action on this thing? Or is this something that is really not the great idea I think it is? Or I'm spending a lot of time on it for reasons that are the wrong reasons right now.
Wendy (05:36)
So one of the things, and I've talked about this before on podcast episode, I think last season I talked about this idea of like shiny object syndrome, which I see happening with the coaches I support all the time. People get a little overwhelmed with the business of building a business. And I get that. It's there's a lot. There are a lot of moving parts in it, and it can feel really, really hard. And sometimes a new idea is a distraction. So sometimes something that seems fun and new.
Wendy (06:05)
Is just an opportunity to avoid doing the hard thing that you don't want to be doing right now. It's easier to dream about the next thing than to sell the current thing for a lot of people. For most coaches, one of the hardest, weirdest parts of owning your own business is the selling. We're not used to selling, most of us, and it feels uncomfortable for us. So often we'll spend time dreaming about new offers because we want to avoid.
Wendy (06:30)
the hard uncomfortable part, which is getting out there and having conversations and telling people what we do and then actually trying to sell our offer. so the idea almost becomes an escape from the tasks in front of you. So, how do you know whether that's happening or not? I think you have to ask yourself some hard questions that will help you tell the difference between, feeling inspired and having an inspired inspired idea and
Wendy (06:55)
Being in an avoidance mode with are you building something because you're genuinely pulled towards it, or are you running away from something else?
Wendy (07:03)
Have you sold out what you already have? This is a great question to ask yourself. Have I sold out what I already have? Or have I only sold a couple of this thing that I spent, you know, the better part of last year creating? Is your current offer actually working, but you're just a little bored with it?
Wendy (07:20)
Right. what is actually behind this desire to build something new? Sometimes you don't need a new offer. You just need to get better at selling what you actually have. In fact, a lot of the time this is the case. So I want to make sure that before you s start, you know, committing a bunch of time and energy into creating a brand new program you know, that you have taken and done the work that you need to do to sell the one that you that you have, and that you're not just trying to avoid.
Wendy (07:45)
uncomfortableness of the marketing because a lot of the time it's not about adding new things to your offer suite when it comes to generating enough in income. it's it's actually about simplifying it. It's about getting better at selling what you already have. And if the problem is a marketing problem, which it almost always is, it's almost always something other than the program itself, the coaching itself, the offer itself.
Wendy (08:12)
then a new offer isn't going to fix that. Like a new offer won't fill fix what I would call like a break in the sales chain. A broken sales chain. A sales a sales chain can be broken at in a million different places. And when I'm working with a coach and they're saying me like, I'm not selling this, I'm not making enough money, I think I need to go back and revise this offer or create a new program or add something new to it. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, stop.
Wendy (08:38)
There's like a 90% chance that the problem here is not with the offer itself. It's somewhere else in the chain that we have something that's misaligned or it's broken. So, for example, it could be that you don't have a big enough audience, so you're not even getting eyeballs on this offer. And so, really, where your sales chain is broken is at the top of your funnel stage, where you really need to be working on.
Wendy (09:00)
bringing more people into your world so that more people are going to see this thing and you have a greater chance of starting to convert people to a paid offer. It might be that the copy for this program, the actual language that you're using to describe this program, either in your social media or in your newsletter on your landing page on your website is just not clear.
Wendy (09:21)
And so people don't even understand what this program is about and what it's for, and therefore the value is not obvious to them and they don't know if it's the right fit for them, right? So in that case, it's a marketing copy issue and we need to deal with that. It might be every once in a while it's a pricing issue. Like your pricing is just wildly wrong. It's either way, way, way too low. So people sort of walk away from this thinking it's probably not very valuable, or maybe it's too high, or the value is just not clear.
Wendy (09:45)
Because again, people don't understand what the transformation is that's that you're helping them make and why it's worth the price. Those are just a few examples of where the chain can be broken, but it's often not that the offer itself is broken. So if you're if you're feeling yourself pulled to create a new offer because you're not selling the one you have, have you actually addressed the potential problems in the sales chain, in the marketing chain? Or are you just avoiding that?
Wendy (10:12)
by focusing on creating a brand new offer. because probably what's gonna happen is you're gonna create this new offer, and then that's not gonna sell either because your sales chain is still gonna be broken somewhere, right? So you wanna make sure you're you're not falling into any of those traps here. But sometimes the idea is real, sometimes the idea is really good, sometimes you have genuinely outgrown your current offers.
Wendy (10:37)
or there's a gap that your audience is asking you to fill, or something has shifted in the market, or the offer no longer fits the real life you want for yourself. We talked about all these things in the first episode of the season last week when I was talking about the changes that I've made to my own signature offer and how the business building boot camp has become the business building boutique, and it is largely as a result of me and my audience and the market.
Wendy (11:03)
Having outgrown the offer. So sometimes you legit are in a situation where you need something new, and the new idea is actually great. So how do you know which is which? Well, there are some questions I think that you need to ask yourself. And these are all things that I've been working through myself in the decisions that I made this summer that I talked about in last week's episode. So you have this good idea, you've spent a lot of time thinking about it. Again, it might even be years you've been thinking about this idea for a program.
Wendy (11:30)
To evaluate whether the idea is worth pursuing, you have to ask yourself a series of questions. The first question is: is this solving a real problem my audience has? Or is it just something I think they should want? This actually happens all the time. I have had so many coaches come in with an idea, and then I start really drilling down and asking them, you know, I think very curious good questions about this offer idea that they have. And it turns out that this
Wendy (11:59)
thing that their offer is designed to solve is a problem their audience doesn't even have. A lot of the time it's something they don't have yet, right? So oftentimes coaches are designing programs for problems that their clients either don't have yet or they're just they're not a priority problem right now because there's something bigger that they're trying to solve. So you really need to make sure that the offer is solving a real problem that the that your audience has right now before you create it. Otherwise you can't sell it.
Wendy (12:27)
And one way to know that is has anyone actually asked for this? Or is this just something I've dreamed up that I love to create because I think they should want it? Right? have people ask you for it. If you take the example of the business building boutique, lots of people asked me for that. I had so many people write me and say, Will the library ever be available without a coached component? Like, will it ever be available self-guided? Could I buy it self-guided? what if I only want the launch module from the
Wendy (12:56)
BBB. Is that available for purchase? Or I know I don't want to commit 12 months. I'd like to only, you know, I feel like I can only commit a few months to this right now. Is that an option? So I was getting questions. I knew people wanted something that I did not have. and again, the business building boutique, which is the new iteration for this fall of the BBB is designed to meet people where they are and to solve problems that they actually had, that they communicated with me and give them what.
Wendy (13:23)
They were telling me that they wanted.
Wendy (14:55)
So you've got to really ask yourself that question. Have people actually asked for this? Is this something people actually need and want? And then I think another really important question is, am I actually excited about delivering this or am I just excited about the idea of it? Right? So you have to think this thing through. Play the tape all the way forward. You have a great idea for a program.
Wendy (15:16)
What does it actually look like to be the person delivering it? And are you ready for that? And I can tell you, I spent a lot of time thinking about that before the first beta launch of the BBB because I knew that the program, the way that I wanted it to run, was gonna require a real commitment from me. And it did. It took it was a four-year commitment to that program because I knew I wanted it to have, I wanted the program to be.
Wendy (15:40)
Have some longevity. I knew I wanted it to be a 12-month commitment on part of coaches because I knew building that building a business doesn't take a few months. And I wanted to be able to walk people through all of the different parts and help them through times when it started to get hard and keep them going and all of that. So I needed to be ready to coach for a minimum of a year straight in this program. And I knew that if it worked the way I believed it would work, I'd be coaching in it for much longer than that. And I was excited about it.
Wendy (16:07)
I was excited about the structure of the program. I felt like it fit with my life at the time, which it did. so it wasn't just the idea of coaching coaches and building their businesses that was exciting to me. It was the actual structure of this program and the reliable stream of revenue that I knew would come from it and would come from ongoing memberships and all the rest of it. I was genuinely excited and ready for that. So just remember that. Like building it is one thing, but running it is a whole other thing.
Wendy (16:35)
And I've actually had times where I was gonna launch a program and I've decided to wait because when I looked at my calendar and I actually plotted out the coaching calls that would be involved in running that program, the marketing, like the lead up and launch to that program, it actually ended up not really fitting with my life in that, you know, couple of months. And and I had too much other stuff going on to do that. So are you really excited about delivering this in the timeframe that you're
Wendy (17:01)
That you're contemplating delivering it in. And then another question that's a good one to ask is would would I still want to do this in two years? Because it's not a great idea to be creating some new program every, I don't think. I just think this is what leads to burnout, where you're creating a new program every few months. Like there's a balance. We talked last time about how.
Wendy (17:21)
there's a myth around this idea of like creating one thing, a signature program, and then having it run for the next 20 years and be the thing that pays your bills for 20 years. Like that's not really practical or realistic either, because you change, your clients change, the market changes, your program is going to become, you redundant, sometimes obsolete. you have to be willing to revisit programming and to change programming and to evolve. We talked about that last week, but also you don't want to be
Wendy (17:46)
creating something new every three to six months because that's exhausting. So we're trying to find the balance in there. When you create a program, you should be really thinking to yourself, like, can I run this? Can I am I in a position to commit to running this for long enough that it's going to make sense? Big picture for me. Because usually the first time you run a program, so let's say it's a six-week program, you run it once, you're probably going to break even, you're not going to make a lot of money because there's a lot of time
Wendy (18:14)
you know, unpaid time that goes into the content creation for the program. There's a lot of marketing that goes into it. Sometimes there are actual hard costs around marketing. Maybe you have to build a new landing page, hire somebody to help you, pay for ads, whatever it is. You're probably going to break, maybe break even on the first iteration, sometimes maybe even lose a little bit of money on your beta. And then, you know, the next time you run it, your profit margin increases a little bit and the next and then the time after that it starts to get more profitable. So you have to be really in it for at least a little bit of a long game here. So
Wendy (18:43)
Would I want to do this in two years? And will I be in a position to keep running this program in two years? Great question to ask yourself. Another question: Do I have the capacity to build and run this right now? So that kind of harkens back to what I just said. Like, do I actually have the time in my schedule to run this right now? What will this practically look like for me if I decide to go for it? Right? or am I already stretched too thin? and what would I need?
Wendy (19:09)
To stop doing or give up in order to make up the room to run this program, not just to run it, but to create it. I almost always create my new content in the summertime, historically. And that's because I have more time in the summertime. It takes less of my weekends in the summertime because I tend to have more free time during the week. And that worked really well for me for a number of years. I've also had times where I've been creating new content and offers where I have set aside, I've looked at my calendar and I've thought, okay.
Wendy (19:36)
For this month, the month of November, I can afford, for example, to give up like three full weekends to content creation. You have to be really practical about it and look at your actual calendar to make sure that this is something that you can do and that's not gonna just tap you out. If you're already working 40 hours in your practice, it's probably not the time to build a new offer and try to launch it, right? So realistically, what does this look like for me? And do I have the capacity and the energy for it?
Wendy (20:03)
Another good question is what would I have to say no to? Because every time you say yes to something new in your business, you are saying no to something else. That's just the truth of it. You're gonna have to you're gonna have less time to spend on marketing, less time to spend on one-on-one coaching, less time to spend on whatever the thing is. Maybe it's less time to spend with your family or the people that you love. is this worth what it's gonna cost in time and energy? Good question, right? I am always looking for, I always say this like when you're trying when my coaches are trying to decide whether
Wendy (20:30)
To do something or to do something else. So they have a like a couple of different ideas of things they could be doing right now. I always say to them, what's closest to the money and the joy? That's where you should go first. And so that's kind of an iteration of this idea of like, is it worth what it'll cost in time and energy? You want something that is going to be energizing, that you're gonna love doing and feel really good about, and that also is gonna lead to revenue fairly quickly for you,
Wendy (20:57)
Something that isn't going to be super expensive to build unless you know it's going to make a lot of money right away, And you definitely don't want something that's going to be an absolute grind to do, and that probably won't make money for years and years. I just think those are bad ideas as a coach. a really good question to make sure again that it's like a good idea for you to be pursuing and you're pursuing it for the right reasons right now is am I avoiding something else by focusing on this?
Wendy (21:25)
And like I said earlier, the thing I find coaches are most often avoiding is the uncomfortableness of marketing and selling. They just don't want to do it. And so they're like, I know what I'll do. I'll just create a new course or I'll create a really new, really fancy, you know, lead magnet. are you using this as a convenient escape from harder work? And what are you not doing in the time that you're spending dreaming about this, right?
Wendy (21:50)
I I I've said this already, but I'm gonna say it again because it's important. Have people actually asked for this? There is a real difference between real demand and assumed demand. And I think we very often assume people want something or should want something, and they don't actually want it, right? and so you really need to test the demand.
Wendy (22:11)
If you haven't tested the demand, then you're just guessing. And that is a terrible place to invest a bunch of time and energy and potentially money into a program creation. So have you tested it or are you guessing? Have people actually asked you for this thing? Is there real demand for it? and you know, one way to to find out is to a is to start asking people, what do you want? If I could create any offer right now, what would it be? If I created this, would that be of interest to you?
Wendy (22:40)
Just ask your people. You can ask in your newsletter. You can ask your one-on-one clients. You if you're coaching a group of people, you can ask them if you have a membership or a you know a circle community. Ask them. If I was to create something this like this, would you be interested in it? And if a bunch of people say yes, say great, okay, well, what structure would appeal to you more? And then g put some ideas out there and get feedback again. test it. Don't guess.
Wendy (23:06)
And then I think another important question is does this actually align with where my business is going, like my longer term goals? or is it something that I've been thinking about now for years and it actually was a really great idea three years ago, but now it actually doesn't align with where I am and with my real life and with my priorities and goals of my business. So does it fit the business that I want to build, or does it just fit the one that I have built?
Wendy (23:33)
Right? Like, is it a future forward thinking course program offer? Is it going to serve me going forward and feel aligned in the direction that my business is going in? okay, here's some ways, signs to know that it's not time to build. again, if you have not sold out what you already have, so if your current offer is not filling up.
Wendy (23:58)
A new offer is not going to fix that. I mentioned that earlier, and I think it's really important. You have a marketing problem probably in that situation, not an offer problem. As I said, some other part of your sales chain is broken. Maybe your audience isn't big enough. Maybe your copy isn't clear enough. Maybe your pricing isn't quite right. Maybe you haven't built enough like no trust yet with these people. Maybe the transformation isn't clear, et cetera, et cetera. It's probably not that the actual offer itself, the course, the program, the group.
Wendy (24:27)
One-on-one coaching is not good. Okay, again, you are building to avoid the marketing or the selling. if selling feels vulnerable to you, if you're somebody who doesn't love the selling part of it and feels a lot of resistance around that, first of all, of course, and this is really, really common. I've talked about
Wendy (24:49)
How to get better and more confident in that aspect of your business in other podcast episodes, and I'm sure that I will going forward in this season as well. So I don't want to make you feel bad if that's you. That's so normal and typical for coaches. Most of us have zero sales training and background, and it feels really weird. I remember coming into it myself and thinking, like, this is what the marketing department at the law firm did, right? Like I never had to market directly like that. I was just not just not accustomed to it.
Wendy (25:17)
I had to do some schmoozing and networking and all of that, obviously as a lawyer, but I wasn't involved in the salesy part of it. And that felt very uncomfortable to me. So if that's you and selling feels vulnerable, make sure that you're not building this thing or dreaming about building this thing to avoid that. That is something you have to reckon with and you have to build your confidence and your comfort level around. And there are ways to do that, but it's not by escaping through some other content creation exercise.
Wendy (25:47)
make sure you're not burnt out and hoping that this new offer is going to fix that. If you're burnt out, trust me, you don't need to work harder. You don't need to create something new. You need to take a break. You need to take a rest. you need to sit back a little bit, take the pressure off yourself. You need to probably coast a little bit with older offers until you really are feeling energized and ready to do the work to create a new offer, if that even is like the right fit for you, if that's warranted.
Wendy (26:13)
Adding more is not going to help, even though shiny things can feel energizing. It's just the shit just a short-term thing if you're actually feeling burnt out and exhausted. The other thing to look out for is an idea that keeps changing from week to week. So you haven't really pinned it down yet. If you can't commit to what it is, then you're not ready to create it. You have to let it simmer for a little longer. And that's a really good practice to get into as a business owner.
Wendy (26:39)
I call it, you know, responding versus reacting. Like you get it, you have an idea, it feels great. Like park it. Let it sit. I did that this summer. I thought I knew what the solution was for the BBB and what I wanted to do to change it, but I purposefully did not say anything, did not do anything, did not make any changes for a full I had a full 30 days where I just sat with it after I had already, you know, kind of come up with the the new iteration. And that was after like.
Wendy (27:07)
feedback and conversations and all the rest of it. I gave myself another month after that because I didn't want to do something in a reactive way. I wanted to make sure that it was well thought out of, well thought You also want to make sure that you're not building for a client that doesn't exist yet or you're not pro you're not building a solution or creating an offer for a problem that your client is either not ready to address yet or does not have yet.
Wendy (27:35)
And I I'd mentioned that earlier. It's about where are they right now? And this this does happen a lot. And I've seen a lot of coaches inside the BBB do this where they are like, well, this is the thing I want to help them with. I really want to help them figure out. So for example, take living alcohol free. a lot of my coaches are alcohol coaches or have been, have gone through the the BBB program. Those people might say, Well, I wanna build a program that really helps people figure out how to.
Wendy (28:01)
live life to the fullest after they've they've let go of alcohol and I'll say to them, okay, well, how long have you been doing this coaching? Well, you know, I started like eight months ago. Okay, so your oldest client is eight months old. Yes. And what did that client, what was the problem that client came to you about? Well, they wanted to change their relationship with alcohol. And where are they now in their journey? Well, they just finally got two months under their belt, alcohol free. Are they ready for a program that helps them celebrate life alcohol free and
Wendy (28:29)
figure out what their next steps are in their life. No, they're not. They're still, they're just in the, they're in the messy middle, right? You want to make sure whatever you're creating is a solution to a problem that your clients actually have right now. And again, this connects back to that idea is is anyone asking for this? Are people asking for this? Because sometimes, oftentimes frankly, you're coaching a niche for a, you know, a year, two years, three years, four years, eventually those people start to say to you, you know what, we've kind of mastered this thing.
Wendy (28:57)
And now we're looking for support in this area. And then when you hear that and you know there's real demand for it, that is the time to start thinking about creating that program. I've done that many, many times where I've created something. I mean, if you think even just about the business building suite, there was we started with the BBB, and then I had coaches after a couple of years say, you know, I
Wendy (29:18)
I want to create an online course and I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to use the technology. I don't know how to figure out what to include and not include. I don't know how to record videos. I don't know how to create how to do a launch for a live group program. I don't know how to do any of that. And that's where the CCC was born. And I created that program in response to that demand. That demand was not there with those coaches.
Wendy (29:41)
In the beginning, because most of the coaches who joined the BBB and the beta were just starting their coaching businesses. They were not ready to even think about creating an online course or program, but eventually they got there. Same thing with the CCSI, the confident coaching skills intensive. The coaches were in the early years of being in the BBB really working hard on putting all the pieces in place so that they would have some structure and systems in their business. They were not thinking about how to elevate their coaching.
Wendy (30:09)
one-on-one. That really wasn't what they were thinking about. They were showing up for coaching sessions. They were doing their best based on their training or certification. But at a certain point they started to realize I want to be able to coach outside of my outside of my niche a little bit. I want to be able to be more flexible in my coaching. I want to feel more confident in the coaching that I'm giving. and they asked me if I would create a program to help them build that confidence and help teach them some of the coaching skills and the coaching tools that I use and have been using for a long time. So again it came out of a
Wendy (30:38)
Out of an actual need that I heard from that group, but they didn't have that need when I first started working with them. They weren't there yet. So you've got to think about that with your audience. Is this a need that they actually have? Or is this something that they will have down the line? and listen, if the honest answer to these questions is I don't actually know whether this is the right idea for me right now. If the answer might be not yet to this program, doesn't mean it's a bad idea.
Wendy (31:05)
It's just a not yet. It's a not yet because your clients aren't there yet, or it's a not yet because you don't really have the resources, or it's a not yet because you haven't quite nailed it down yet. That is not a failure. That is actually good business. That is discernment. That is you saying no to it right now. And that's a strategic move. That's when that offer idea gets put in the vault. And the vault, again, for me, I talk about the vault a lot. My vault is just a whiteboard.
Wendy (31:31)
But it's an area on the whiteboard, it says vault on the top. And these are ideas that I know are really great ideas, but they're just not for right now. And I don't want to lose them. I want to make sure that I can revisit them easily. And so they're sitting, you know, behind my laptop, leaning up against my desk is a list of vault ideas. And sometimes the vault topics move into the to-do list because I decide, I'm actually going to take action on that now. It is the right time. But a lot of the time the things in the vault stay there for six months, a year, sometimes longer.
Wendy (32:01)
Okay, signs that it's time to build, signs that you are actually ready to create a new offer this fall, for example. This idea has been consistent for a long time. It keeps coming back, it's basically the same, it's not changing a lot, and it doesn't feel like a passing whim. It feels like a really persistent pull or calling. Your clients keep asking for it. So you're getting more and more real demand.
Wendy (32:28)
For this offer. They're telling you it's what they need. It's not an assumed demand, it's a real demand. It fills a genuine gap in your offer suite. Another thing to look at. Is there room for this in my offer suite? If you're new to the podcast, the offer suite is the sort of the collection of offers or products that you have. And a really well-rounded offer suite is gonna have at least one free resource.
Wendy (32:55)
or lead magnet or freebie as they're sometimes called, it's gonna have one lower ticket offer. So something that's like your lower priced offer. And then it's gonna have something that is higher priced. And as you go forward in building your coaching business, you're gonna you're gonna continue adding products to that offer suite to fill it out so that you have like a couple of low ticket, sorry, a couple of free things that pull people in onto your email list, for example, a couple of low ticket things.
Wendy (33:23)
that are kind of no-brainers for people that help build that like no trust with you, but make you a little bit of money, a lower ticket offer, a medium ticket offer, maybe that's a group coach program or something like that, and a VIP offer, something that's like a higher price kind of premium product. Okay. So you want to look at your offer suite right now right now, and you want to make sure there's room for this in there. If you already have three medium ticket offers, this might, and this is gonna be another medium ticket. Maybe that's not what you need. Or if you already have, you know.
Wendy (33:50)
All kinds of freebies. Maybe you don't need another freebie might right now. Maybe that doesn't make sense for you. So does it does it fill like a clear space, void, need in your offer suite? and that would be something that serves your people in a way that your current offers don't, or serves people that your current offer doesn't. So either serves different people or it serves your existing clients, but in a different way. Okay.
Wendy (34:17)
you also need to have capacity. So it might be time to build it if you actually have the time and the energy right now. Maybe things are a little bit slow, or maybe you've just wrapped up something, and so it feels like you have more capacity. Maybe something is shifted in your personal life that allows you to dedicate more time to your business. But you need to be able to see how this fits in your life and you and or need to be willing to let go of something else to make room for this. Okay. So it has to feel like you actually can do it physically.
Wendy (34:45)
And you also need to make sure that you're feeling genuinely excited and not just kind of restless. Okay. So it feels like a growth for you. It feels like something exciting and a natural next step and not like an escape, a way to avoid the hard work or the busy work or the whatever. I want you to also be really sure that this aligns with where your business is going. I mentioned this earlier. So is this
Wendy (35:09)
Something that fits with whatever the future is that you see for your business, or is it a throwback to some old version of you? Because the danger is that if this isn't a really good idea, putting that in quotes, but it's been around for years, that it might have been a really great idea three years ago, but it no longer serves you. So you need to think about that. If a few of those things that I just mentioned are true, it might be time for you, okay? So, you know, the other things to
Wendy (35:35)
To remember are that just because it's a good idea. So if you get to a place where you're like, yep, this is a great idea. I think I need to do this thing, it doesn't mean now is the right time because you also have to really take a look at the big picture here. You to look at your calendar, your energy, your capacity, the market, all of those things, okay, to make sure that it is in fact the right time. It's totally okay to put an idea on hold. Again, that's what the vault's for. You can move it over there, even if it's just for short term. You can say yes, but not yet, and actually mean it.
Wendy (36:05)
And I've done that many times before. Yes, this is a great idea, but not yet. I don't have the capacity for it. Or not yet. The market is really shaky right now, and I don't feel like it's a good time, right? You get to say that. but it's also okay to stop waiting. It's also okay to go for it. Okay. and sometimes you just need to decide it's the right time and just go for it and and you know, and do it. And so if this is you.
Wendy (36:28)
If you're listening to this and you're thinking, yes, I have a big idea. I've had it for a long time. It keeps coming back to me. I think it's my next big thing. Ask yourself all of these questions that we've talked about today. Only you can tell the difference between something that is genuinely an amazing, perfectly suited, perfectly fitting next step for you, or a distraction from the hard work that's actually in front of you.
Wendy (38:06)
If you went through this episode and at the end of all of this you've arrived at not yet, that's a win. I want you to see that as a success because you just freed up mental energy for what's actually important for you right now. And it's not creating this new offer. And that's a really good thing to be clear on. But if you listen to this episode and at the end of it, you're realizing it is time, then next week's episode's for you. And I want you to make sure that you tune in because
Wendy (38:34)
Once you've decided the idea is worth building, the question becomes: how do you actually make it happen without spinning your wheels for months and months and months? Like, how do you actually get this thing out into the world? And I think the answer might surprise you. And I'm going to come back with that next week. So, once again, thank you for listening to The Coaching Edge. And I will see you next week.
