Making it Easy for Clients to Join Your Group Program

Once you've come up with the perfect concept for your group coaching program, it’s time to turn your attention to filling your groups and keeping members in your sales funnel.

Note we did not say “keeping your members in your group." You want groups that are finite-that accomplish a purpose. Achievement through transformation is what coaching is all about, and it could be argued that if you have people staying in the same group for years at a time, that’s a failure. Plus, your reputation won’t grow once your community basically becomes a closed clique; and it won’t nurture, build and feed dynamic energy.

Yes, you want to retain the same subscribers—but watching them progress through different services, different groups, different offers. You want them to turn into JV partners and committed proponents of your signature system or method.

You want a steady stream of new, fresh faces eagerly discovering your programs, product, coaching and groups.

That’s how to keep the fun in your business (as well as maximum profits and top-level reputation).

Step One: Fitting a Group Coaching Program into Your Funnel

Knowing why you are adding a group program plays a big part in how you approach it and where it fits into your funnel. For example, if you know that you’re absolutely burnt out with one-on-one coaching, don’t want more than three clients at a time—clients who fit highly-selective criteria—and that you’d rather shift the majority of your business over to group coaching, then you have two practical options to choose from:

1.     Go for the numbers. Create programs that can auto-deliver a good portion of the content and handle a client list of hundreds.

2.     Create multiple groups at different levels, so you have a dynamic community and maximum income from all levels

On the other hand, if you want your groups to lead to more one-on-one clients—or you deal with a particular culture of clients (for example, shy clients, introverts, INFJ clients) you will want to use webinars and small, highly personal groups as a way to convert these clients to one-on-one takers—after they’ve achieved some success.

With the former, where group coaching is going to make up your primary income, it’s a good financial strategy to charge at least the same price for a group as you do for one-on-one. If gaining new one-on-one clients is your game plan, you can afford to create lower priced programs as a way to encourage the hesitant to take the plunge.

But no matter what your approach to clients and income, all group coaches have to make sure their group programs fit into a natural spot in their sales funnels—one that naturally encourages each participant to progress to the next level.

Take into account the nature of groups.

Groups organically work one of two ways:

Model “A”

o  People join, all fired up and enthusiastic about the group topic

o  They achieve their goal and leave—to your next step or level, if you provide one

OR…

Model “B”

o  People join, all fired up and enthusiastic about the group topic

o  People lose interest, and drop out:

o  When they realize how much they are spending monthly on that particular group

o  When they realize they are no longer visiting more than once in a blue moon

With Model “A”: Your client leaves at a time determined by you. Most will leave on a high, having achieved a goal and be eagerly looking for what you can offer as your next step. Motion and dynamics are at their highest. Your participant is geared and conditioned to take action, swept along on a wave of confidence.

With Model “B”: Your client leaves on a low, having exhausted all your resources. Her peers may have left the group; she doesn’t know the new people, and when she leaves, she will most likely look around for something—and someone—completely new.

You have let her drop out of your funnel with nothing to inspire and hook her; no “next level” to progress to.

Now it is true that with Model “B”, you may also have a community that is huge enough for attrition to have a negligible effect. You will also undoubtedly have core life timers who do a lot to keep the group going—but wouldn’t you like to use that core group to actively promote your next offer or group? Wouldn’t you like them to progress to be your next one-on-one clients—as well as continue to invest in your group challenges, boot camps and VIP group events?

This is why it is so important to:

A.     Create groups with a purpose—and a beginning, middle and end

B.     Fit your group into a funnel at the right place for that group (and participants)

C.     Make sure you know where potential bottlenecks could occur

D.    Have something even more exciting for participants to progress to, on exit

A bottleneck equals anything that gets your client stuck within a process flow. For example, say they want to sign up for your new group, but you forgot to assign the correct link to your PayPal button. What happens: Your client presses the button and gets taken to an old sales page that says: “This event is now closed”. If there is no other step they can take—for example: “But to get the replay, just give us your best email address and we’ll send you the link”—then they are stuck. And that’s when you lose people-when they are either stuck or confused or both.

This is why beta testing every part of your group program set up and content is so important.

Your group program should always be both stand-alone—in that the participant reaps a real confidence-building benefit from completing it—and part of an overview and a whole.

Step Two: Make it Easy for Your Participant to Join

Making it easy for them to say “yes” doesn’t just mean simplifying almost everything: Payments, technology, contact and support. It also means paying real attention to the principle “less is more”.

o  Focus on ONE specific goal per group. Eliminate all content that doesn’t relate to achieving that goal.

o  Don’t offer too many options. For example, don’t offer a payment plan if you really don’t want to attract people who will have trouble meeting your price points

o  Decide on who you want for a participant—then tailor all advertising, promotion and content to that participant.

If you don’t want specific subsets of that group—e.g. “newbies” or beginners—actively discourage them with disqualifying statements like this one, found on Your Holistic Dietitian.com.

Better yet, make sure you also spell out who WILL benefit from the group:

Be specific. Don’t just say “people interested in religion." SAY “staff pastor, volunteer or board member." And identify the key area of interest (e.g. “leading in ministry”) on your sales page.

Once you have simplified anything in your blog posts, social posts or landing pages, also simplify your calls to action. Make sure they are crystal-clear about what to do next—and what to expect. (E.g. “Select `Join the Group’ and you will be sent straight to the private meeting area, where you can download resources, watch tutorials and register for the next weekly coaching session.”)

Don’t give them anything to “trip” over. Simplify and take care of every detail. Even such things as simple spelling mistakes can erode their confidence in the professional level of your program.

(That last actual example, by the way, was from a sign-up form created by two top-level coaches—even the best can overlook details! Our two top-level coaches probably won’t lose anyone over a couple of spell-check glitches, but if you’re relatively new to your audience, you can lose participants over anything that makes you look sloppy or inexperienced—including spelling mistakes. So make sure you have a good system, too.)

Take anything that doesn’t fit in your program’s mission and goal, and either discard it or put it aside to build future blog posts, groups or products around.

Step Three: Maximizing Your Existing Assets to Attract New Participants

What you can do to simplify things for yourself (as well as delight group participants): Make the most of your existing assets. Take inventory! This can include:

o  Skills

o  Content already created

o  Technical abilities

o  Staff or contractors who bring added value to the business

o  Previous and current clients

o  Previous and current JV partners

For example, invite previous and current clients—ones you know will add lively discussion and a positive, active presence to your group—to be your beta-testers. Offer them a free lifetime membership to that particular group. (YOU are the one who will benefit the most!)

If you use and have built a relationship with the world’s best graphic designer, commission extra photos or infographics to help your coaching modules stand out.

If you supply premium worksheets or templates to private clients, re-purpose a selection of those as premium free bonus gifts or resources for your group participants.

If you are particularly skilled in podcasts, create special podcasts for your participants.

That’s the way to maximize your time and reduce stress. Stop re-inventing the wheel—while delivering huge value and stimulating your group members’ or webinar attendees’ appetites!

Step Four: Using (and Gathering) Social Proof without Even Trying

All of the strategies we’ve talked about here naturally set you up to gather social proof without particularly trying. Your action-taking, loyal beta testers can help you talk up a storm and share your group program buzz—but be sure to give them opportunities and incentives for so doing.

Starting with inviting them to join for free is a great start. And tools like apps can help you create fun contests—which you can offer incentives for your new affiliates and followers to promote. (Try apps like Woobox to set them up in a jiffy.)

Make sure you create a closed or secret Facebook Group for your group members too—so they can continue to interact on a daily basis between formal group sessions or webinars.

Schedule at least three ten-minute periods per day to put in an appearance:

o  Post shareable links, infographics, cartoons, motivational quotes, tips and resources

o  Let your members know whether they can or can’t share particular content outside the group

o  Answer questions. If there are too many for your A.M. ten-minute period, answer a few more during your afternoon one.

o  Provide clear guidelines so that everyone knows they are welcome to speak—and what they can talk about or share

You CAN be active and present within your Facebook Group without having it take over your whole life—and if ten minutes per session is too much, cut it to five. If you’re enjoying the group program and Facebook Group as much as your participants.

The important thing is to keep conversations going. Provide value, direct participants to your calls to action—and remember to put the latter in social posts too.

Step Five: Promise Big Benefits—and Let them Feel the Transformation

The strategy for successfully promising big benefits, then letting them feel the transformation is simple but effective:

o  Promise the big benefits on your pre-taste webinar landing page—and deliver them in your group program

As long as you deliver on your main promise, it doesn’t matter how many other benefits you do or do not include—but surprising your participants with high value extras is always a great idea.

Your group program can be paid or free. You can have two group programs—a 30-Day trial program that gets your participants to achieve on result while building a happy community—and finish off with an offer to either paid one-on-one coaching (a “special” for your loyal group members) or your deluxe, longer-term group or VIP event... or both.

Remember: No matter what type of group you create, its success will hinge on:

o  Setting clear guidelines, goals and progress markers (such as weekly or daily check-ins, weekly quizzes or surveys, etc.)

o  Making sure all members of the group are heard and encouraged

o  Understanding group dynamics (and how to handle both people who tend to dominate the group if you let them, and those who “hide” in the background)

There is an element of irony in that you have to make sure your group becomes a safe place, where everyone is respected and heard, before you can get members to stretch out of their comfort zones.

One last key element to hooking them in and delivering: Tell your story in your own voice and your own words, to weed out those who won’t take action—and hook those who will. This doesn’t mean rambling on and on about yourself. It means showing your members or webinar participants things about your own journey that are highly relevant to where your ideal participant is now—and letting her know you have the key to getting past that point.

Finally, let your beta-testing core members and/or existing past or current clients tell your story too. Or rather, set it up so they can confirm what you are saying.

Fulfill these conditions, and you will make it easy for your ideal participant to take that first step—and trust you enough to join or try out your services.

Let’s talk more about this next week as I dig deeper into: How to Attract the Perfect JV Partners and Build Your Community. In the meantime, I invite you to schedule a call with Membership Fix to learn a clear strategy for building out -- and filling! -- your sales funnel!