You are set to start your first group coaching program
or your second group coaching program.
And as you've prepared the best program outline
from your perspective, you might be so ready
to enroll all of those wonderful clients,
those wonderful students, to come into your program.
And well, you have the classic problem of an empty chat box
and sometimes just nobody else
but themselves in the Zoom room.
So you may be wondering,
"Why is it that I do not have any group coaching clients?"
Well, I'm gonna give you some reasons today
and some strategies that you can use
to overcome such reasons
to create a phenomenal group coaching program
but also enough clients in that group coaching program
that you get more success.
Ready for that?
The first and the fundamental reason
why you are struggling to enroll people
into your group coaching program
is unclear value proposition.
You see, most group coaching programs
are designed from the perspective of the coach.
You are the coach, and you say,
"Well, I wanna create a group coaching program around X."
And that may seem like the right approach,
but that often doesn't really resonate with your clients.
See, group coaching programs,
for the people that sign up for group coaching programs,
usually sign up for a very particular result.
They wanna build a new habit in the next 60 days.
They wanna be able to heal their relationship.
They wanna lose weight.
They wanna increase their business profit margin.
A very specific outcome.
And it needs to be so specific
that it's clear for your client
as to why are they going to say yes.
So the first thing that you wanna do
is you wanna make your value proposition
really, really clear.
What is the outcome that your client can expect
in 60 days, in 90 days, in a year?
However long your group coaching program is,
there should be a clear understanding of where they are
and where they will be after the coaching program is over.
And the more clear your value proposition,
the easier for them to say yes.
Now, that brings me to the second reason.
Let's say you've defined
your value proposition really right.
You're like, "Ajit, I've got the value proposition.
"Look at my page.
"It says perfectly exactly what you get in the end."
Well, the second reason why coaches
fail to enroll more people into group coaching programs
is because of ineffective marketing strategies.
You see, the world of internet or internet marketing per se
is so surrounded by the idea of launches
that we think everything should be a launch
and a launch period or the launch window
is all of the window that you need
to enroll everybody into your program.
It is true if you have a big group of individuals
that are waiting to sign up with you,
if you've maintained an email list
or a very strong social media following
or some YouTube channel where people really continuously,
week after week, watch your content,
yes, you can launch a product,
and you can fill the entire group fairly quickly.
But what if you don't have all of those things?
Well, that is where your marketing strategies
or the way you promote your program changes.
You're not looking for one big launch event.
What you're looking for,
small daily interactions in communicating
with precisely the individuals
that would be interested in the outcome,
the value proposition that you have
for your group coaching program.
See, depending on where you are in your journey,
your marketing strategies need to change.
The marketing strategy that works for me
may not work for you
if you're just starting out your career.
Even if you are a early seasoned coach
but you have never maintained an email list,
you've never maintained a phone list,
you've never maintained a a Facebook group
or an Instagram following,
it may be much difficult for you
to enroll into your group coaching program
using the same strategies that I use.
So what you need to really ask
is based on where you are in your journey,
based on interactions of the world with you,
based on interactions of your potential clients with you,
what is the most effective way
to communicate the value proposition that you have?
And secondly, how much time you're gonna need
to communicate that value proposition.
Let me give you an example.
Say you are a business coach and you're building a program
that helps clients generate more profit
over the next 60 or 90 days.
If you're building that group coaching program
and you've never maintained an email list
of individuals who might be in business,
well, you may need to pick up the Rolodex or your phone book
and start calling each of the companies
that you've worked with in the past five years,
or call your past colleagues
or call people that you've met
in different places, different events,
and be able to engage them one person at a time.
While if you have an email list,
you may launch something in a week,
to enroll one person at a time may take you a month.
So don't ask what marketing strategy
worked for somebody else.
Ask where you are in your journey
and what may be the most effective marketing strategy
that you can pursue
to be able to fill your group coaching program.
The third reason that you may be struggling to enroll people
into your group coaching program
only becomes valid once you're clear
about the outcome that your client gets,
when you have a good idea of how to market to them
or what marketing strategies should be deployed
based on where you are in your career,
in your journey, in your database, and so forth.
And that is poor program structure.
A lot of the times we create group coaching programs
based on how we do one-on-one coaching.
Or even worse,
we think of group coaching programs as online programs,
and we start designing our group coaching program
to look very much like an online program.
Well, if it's an online program,
you have no real distinction,
you have no real elements of coaching
that distinguishes your program from anything else.
When you're designing a group coaching program,
you must understand and consider
that there needs to be high engagement in this program,
weekly outcomes in this program,
follow through in these programs.
Because if you don't have these other elements,
while the program may sound right,
you may not get results for your clients.
See, the only thing
that keeps your group coaching program exciting
for the next batch and the next batch
and you getting referrals
and more people signing up for your programs
is the quality of outcome
that you were able to generate for your clients.
If you are able to deliver a high-quality outcome
for your client, you will be able
to create a beautiful group coaching program
where people constantly enroll and re-enroll
into your group coaching programs.
And so you wanna consider
how you've structured the programs.
What are the elements that have been added into the program
that leads to transformation, engagement,
and some kind of accountability
so your clients are feeling
that they need to engage back into the program
because they are always being held accountable,
that there is relationship between you and your clients.
If you do not have engagement, if you do not have results,
if you do not have accountability
in your group coaching programs,
there's a big possibility that once the program starts,
your clients will disengage,
and you will struggle to re-enroll or enroll new clients
into your group coaching programs.
The fourth reason is so very important,
and that is, when somebody's about to say yes
to your group coaching program,
what they look for is evidence,
some way for them to know
what you are saying works actually works.
And for that reason, it is important and critical for you
to somehow include stories or social proof
about the quality of outcomes
that you bring in somebody's life.
Now, you may wonder, "Hey, Ajit,
"I am a coach, and my clients have an NDA.
"I can't really talk about my clients."
Or you may say, "I'm a coach, and I'm a new coach,
"but I have this great methodology that I have developed,
"and I would like to present it straightaway to my clients
"or have people enroll into a group coaching program."
Well, fear not.
You can tell stories and you can tell social proof
by being the example.
And that's the first thing that you wanna consider,
is, are you the example of the outcome
that you promised to your clients?
Consider this.
If you were struggling in a relationship
and you've tried a few things
and you're still struggling in a relationship,
do you feel a little bit hesitant to buy the next program
or buy the next retreat or whatever that might be?
You do, and that's because you've failed a couple of times.
And that's the story of most of our clients.
They have tried a few things,
and it hasn't worked out for them for very many reasons.
So when we propose a group coaching program,
we must become the examples first.
In some way communicate
how you have transformed something in your life
or your health or your business and so forth
so your clients can go, "If they can do it for themselves,
"maybe I can do it for myself."
If that is not a possibility, if this is mostly a result
that you've created for your clients,
see if you can tell the story without mentioning
or giving away much details to the clients.
You can start your story simply by saying,
"A client that I worked with."
So instead of giving the details to the client,
instead of telling who the client was,
you can always tell the story
while of course being respectful of a non-compete or NDA
that you might have signed for the client.
So that's something for you to discover.
I'm not a lawyer.
This is not a legal advice.
But I would really invite you to see
if there are stories that you can tell
that helps your client believe themselves
and also believe you
to be able to create that result for themselves.
And the last thing to consider
if you're struggling to enroll students
into your group coaching program
is pricing and payment plans.
See, sometimes we have individuals
that really want the result,
but because of their own hesitance
or the stage of life they're at,
maybe their payment cycle in their jobs
or salary cycle in their jobs,
they might be struggling to be able to make a full payment.
Often group coaching programs are in thousands of dollars.
And because of that, it sometimes is difficult
for somebody to say yes to be working with you.
And that is exactly where you need
to show up differently for your clients.
You need to ask a better question.
You need to go, "Okay, what is it
"that I can do with my payment plans or my pricing
"that will allow my client to say yes?"
You wanna think about extended payment plans.
You wanna think about if you can trust your audience
and you can find that confidence
in that risk that you might take
where they will pay on time
and they will honor all of their payments.
What I've found is that it doesn't always work out.
There have been experiences in my career
where we built programs, and we delivered to those programs,
and we ended up enrolling the wrong group of people.
And we had to take the heat,
financial heat, because of that.
But at the same point in time,
what I've also found is mostly human beings are amazing,
and they're very kind,
and they do wanna get results, and they do want the help.
And once we do give them what they seek,
they are usually very honorable people.
So if that is you, if that is what you can do,
if you feel called to do that,
I invite you to consider giving extended payment plans
for people to be able to afford
to join that group coaching program
for them to get that result.
Because more likely than not, if they get the result,
they'll be able to also see the value in your program.
And they will not only pay the full amount,
but they will also be excited to work with you
in the next group coaching program that you announce.
And eventually,
business is about building long-term relationships.
It's about honoring the relationships
that are honoring you back.
Now, here's something that I do wanna share with you.
If you feel like,
"I've understood why I might not be enrolling,
"but I don't really know how to enroll somebody
"into a group coaching program."
Well, the next video is gonna show you that.
So go ahead, click on the next video.
It's gonna tell you how to structure
your group coaching program.
And then I would love
to see your group coaching program being launched.
It was so great talking to you today.
Thank you so much for watching.
This is Coach Ajit,
and you're watching this on Evercoach.