Generating Coaching/Consulting

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TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: Alright Fred, let’s spend a little bit of time now talking about that last piece of the seminar formula, which was TR equals SR plus PS plus CB.

Fred: Yup.

Avish: So let’s talk about that CB which is coaching and consulting business. This is another way you can generate a lot of money as a result of your seminars correct?

Fred: Absolutely.

Avish: Okay. So for people who are unfamiliar with this model, what do you mean by coaching and consulting business?

Fred: Well coaching and consulting is where you help people, either one-on-one or in a group situation to help achieve whatever their goals are business-wise that you can help them get too. Or whatever, not necessarily business-wise if you’re doing a non-business seminar. So coaching I think of as one-on-one and can either be done over the phone or in person, usually it’s done over the phone. And consulting I look at, and again these are part of the books that I offer. There’s one on consulting and how to start your own consulting business in your own field at fredgleeck.comford/ebooks so that they can look more at that if they want if anybody listening wants to check those out. But coaching to me is one-to-one, consulting is more, you know, consulting to organizations which is usually one-on-many.

But the model you can set-up which is one that I keep talking to everyone, you know, one of my protégés like you about, is that you need to offer people product only, which is what we have been talking about in the last couple of sections of how to produce your products. But when you pitch something to people at an event, you offer them something that is product only. Something that is product plus group coaching or something that is product plus individual coaching.

So there are two types of models for consulting and/or for coaching for that matter that you want to offer people at your events. One is the one-on-one which is much more expensive obviously for them or the second option is the group coaching which is less expensive but they don’t get, you know, obviously the personalize attention but they do get a lower price point. So I think it’s important for people to understand that you can make this offer and make it either one-to-one or one-on-many.

Avish: Okay. Got it. So the idea there is someone comes to your seminar they get lots of information but then they are going to want some more customized individual help?

Fred: Yup they might want customized individual help or they want some help. They feel pretty knowledgeable about the topic and all they need is some group coaching because they figured, you know what? I don’t really need individual help because that’s expensive. All I need is some individual coaching from this person.

Avish: Okay. So you say the best way to sell consulting is to not look eager to get it?

Fred: Yeah. I think that when you look like you need to get the business, people are going to be wondering, well if you’re that good a consultant or a coach why would you be so pushy and sales-ly about it? And that’s a good question. I would feel that way.

Avish: So how do you go about it in your pitch — selling that, coaching or consulting service?

Fred: Well one of the things you have want to do is at least a couple of times before you pitch, is to tell a story in which you say, “You know I was recently coaching a guy on blah blah blah and just lay that or drop it in there once or twice. Don’t do it too often or I did a consulting gig once recently where I found blah blah blah.” So you drop it in very casually before the pitch to let people now obviously that you can do it. It’s just you’re not trying to sell it real hard because if you’re trying to sell it real hard, it must mean there is something wrong with you.

Avish: Okay, well along those lines I have this note hear that says, “Never Go Out Looking for It.”

Fred: Yeah and what I mean is, I don’t think that trying to go out, running around soliciting coaching businesses as a good way to go. I would rather offer people, you know, a free consultation or something like that if you are trying to sell it which is to get them to start talking to you and then pitch it. Rather than going out on a crusade to try and land coaching or consulting clients. I think that’s the wrong way to go and it looks sort of like you know, how good can you be, if you got to go out pound the pavement for it.

Avish: Right so you will more have just sheets describing what you do and you don’t really push too hard on it?

Fred: I don’t but I do have specific websites like everybody listening to this program can go check out consultwithfred.com. They can also check out JVwithfred.com and get a feel for how I’m setting these up myself. I have separate URLs to promote each of those and by the way in most cases, very few cases will people go ahead and sign up for the coaching programs right there on the spot unless they are part of a bundle package which I am suggesting is certainly a good idea and worth considering.

So let’s say for example I was doing a one-day seminar, I might pitch something that had the 97 dollar product only, you know, the 397 dollar product plus a couple of coaching sessions and the 777 dollar, you know, product plus individual coaching. So group coaching is always in the middle, private and individual one-on-one coaching is always at the high-end and product only always on the low-end.

Avish: Okay got it. That makes sense. What do you mean by regular and consistent contact but don’t be pushy?

Fred: Yeah well the thing is if you have people on your email list and your contacting them over and over again, especially after they have attended one of your events, what’s going to happen is in your signature or whatever, you may want to put a couple of website links. One of which night be your site similar to consultwithfred.com and so in doing that regular and consistent contact with people, you sort of will let them say to themselves, “You know what? I really use some help on this who do I go too?” And then boom! There you are.

Avish: Okay and one of the areas I know when it comes to coaching and consulting that confuses people or gets them hang up is how do they price their coaching services? You know do you go in low or should you price it higher? What’s the theory there?

Fred: Well it’s funny because there are a lot of people who will give you very sophisticated models of what price to charge and inevitably what it comes down to is just getting in the ball park with people who do similar things that you do. And when you are first starting out though, here’s the beauty, the beauty of it is you don’t have to charge a lot of money for your coaching and consulting because frankly you’ll take it anywhere you can get it. Except you don’t want to make it so cheap that people will be suspicious whether or not you have decent quality information you give them.

So again, I would say that out of minimum, if you are offering a coaching package that costs less than 100 dollars a session, that would make me concerned about you and your quality as a coach. Again, but that 100 dollars a session when you start promoting it and you start to get known in your field, you know, it would not be unlikely for you to get three or four or five hundred dollars per coaching session. So start out low, and then raise it based on demand.

Avish: Okay, and so when you say coaching session, what’s a typical coaching session?

Fred: In terms of length?

Avish: Yeah.

Fred: For me I usually say 60 minutes but if something has to go a little bit over. I am not really a stickler for that.

Avish: Okay, so it sounds like you have, to kind of summarize this, it’s a good way to make money, but you don’t want to be too pushy on it so you included as part of your product offering. And drop some things, and throughout your seminar letting people know this is something you do?

Fred: Yup! And then you may want to have also as a final note on this, is to have some packages developed. So just an introductory session is this. A three month commitment is this and a year of commitment is this, you may want to do that.

Avish: Okay. That makes sense.

Fred: Perfect!