As heart-centered entrepreneurs, we want to offer value to our clients. With integrity. Transform their challenges into life-changing results, while (over)delivering them with what they need.
I feel passionate about helping people. However, being passionate is not sufficient to have a sustainable coaching business.
We need coaching products – like coaching sessions or a program – to offer a transformation.
And a working business model to get revenue in return. So that we can keep helping people and have money to pay the bills.
Depending on how much time and money you have, creating products can be risky. Before spending precious time on creating a (high value) coaching program, it’s better to do some research first.
And check your findings on desirability, feasibility, and viability.
What is Desirability?
In this article, I will write more about desirability. What I mean by desirability is, discovering what people find worth spending their time, money, and effort in. And more importantly, what kind of coaching will help them to solve their problems.
Desirability also means that you enjoy spending time in your business. Helping clients with energy and passion. In a way that it aligns with your inner nature. You need to know what itch to scratch.
Building a new coaching product and bringing it in front of an audience can take several weeks or months. It is obvious that all those efforts are a waste when you create a program that nobody wants.
How can you discover what your clients desire? What makes your coaching product irresistible?
Clients Don’t Care About Your Program
Of course, a good match in personalities is needed. And your prospective client should have trust in you as a coach. If that’s a green checkmark, then you are ready to go.
It all starts with the insight that your client does not really care about your solution (your coaching program). They care about their problems. And reaching a certain desired outcome. Like a long-lasting transformation.
Discovering your clients’ needs and desires can be fun. It’s like a camping trip in nature, with you as a guide. Talking to them and observing. Who is this person next to you? What is on his or her mind? What questions does he or she have?
Be Curious and Discover
Be curious, listen, and take notes. So that you can describe the challenges (problems) that are preventing them from reaching the desired destination.
Real challenges that are worth building a program for, can be discovered by looking at what kind of solutions they are hiring right now. And to what purpose. Listen to what other coaching programs they are spending money on. Then see how you can come up with a better alternative.
How is your coaching product different and better? What are the benefits?
When you describe answers to the above questions, then your coaching program will be magnetic. Desirable.
The Disadvantage of Launch First, Sell Later
You may have heard the advice from business coaches before to first sell your coaching program, before creating all the modules. By waiting until you’ve had a successful launch before you start building, you minimize the risk, time, and energy you need to spend.
Why waste time on creating, when there is (almost) no desire or not many sales, right?
While I do like this good advice, there are still some problems when you follow this strategy.
A launch is not a great way to test the desirability of your coaching product. And what does a successful launch even mean?
Launching is the process of reaching the right people, booking conversations, and closing sales.
It still requires a few weeks of planning, preparation, content creation, and doing whatever process to launch. There are riskier parts of your product than creating your program content modules…
The success of a launch depends on different parameters. It is not a measure of how great or bad your product is. There could be problems with your reach, with your process of getting conversations or closing the sale.
Before rushing into a product launch and hoping for sales, it is better to first do some validation that takes less time and energy.
Build Your Launchpad First
My way is by going slowly in the beginning. So that I can learn more and scale up later. I believe in doing the right action at the right time. To preserve energy and gain momentum once I managed to have more predictability. Build your launchpad first, before launching.
With planning and focus, you will be able to test out different parts of your offer. It will give you the fuel needed for your offer launch.
An effective way to validate your offer desirability is by going into conversations with your audience. And invite them into one-on-one sessions until you have at least 10 customers. This will allow you to tweak your offer in small steps. You will learn a lot from your clients. So that your marketing and launches will be easier later.
When going on a camping trip, you also start with packing your gear…
Steven Poelmans
Steven Poelmans has supported hundreds of entrepreneurs and companies to build scalable products and grow meaningful businesses. He decided to restart his career and founded The Freedom Story Academy to support impact-making coaches and entrepreneurs worldwide to rewrite the way they work, live, and breathe and help them to structure and launch online services.
Steven Poelmans
Steven Poelmans has supported hundreds of entrepreneurs and companies to build scalable products and grow meaningful businesses. He decided to restart his career and founded The Freedom Story Academy to support impact-making coaches and entrepreneurs worldwide to rewrite the way they work, live, and breathe and help them to structure and launch online services.
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