A Podcast for Coaches shines a light on one of the most elegant, underrated business models in the world: one-on-one coaching. Mark Butler hosts the show, and he's been a coach and advisor to every kind of online business you can think of, having helped businesses earning everything from $0 to $25,000,000+. Although Mark believes every online business model has merit, he worries one-on-one coaching is viewed as a stepping-stone business for people who aren't ready or able to scale. But it's not true, and A Podcast for Coaches sets out to show people--through clear teaching and rich, current stories of successful coaches who love their business--that one-on-one coaching is one of the most gratifying and lowest "hassle-per-dollar" businesses in the world.
Mark Butler: Hey, this is Mark
Butler and you are listening
to a podcast for coaches.
I've been thinking a lot lately
about viewing my work as a utility.
So let's think about what
do I mean by utility?
Versus something like a luxury experience.
Here's an example.
Yesterday I was talking to a coaching
friend of mine and historically I
would call her a kind of exclusive
sought after coach whose prices are
pretty high relative to mine anyway.
And we were talking about
pricing, what she might do in
the future with her pricing..
And she was asking me about my
experience with not low prices, but
lower prices than I used to charge
and how I'm experiencing that.
And I said it's been great.
And the truth is I might
lower my prices again.
Now I don't know that I will,
and I don't know by how much.
And in fact, it, that may not make sense.
And I may increase my prices.
But she was very surprised to hear
that I might lower them again.
And her immediate assumption was
that I'd be lowering my prices
because demand is shrinking.
Now in simple microeconomic
theory, that's how it works.
When demand is lower, price goes down
because it's high demand that would
lead to high prices, not universally, but.
as a basic rule of thumb.
And it's not so much that
demand has increased.
I'm finding that I'm able
to connect with the number of
new clients that I'd like to.
It's more that I want my coaching to
keep evolving in the direction of being a
utility that my clients view as a standard
semi permanent part of their life.
In other words, when someone
signs up for coaching with me.
I liked the idea that they would at
least view it as a possibility that
we would work together for years.
Strategically, that's advantageous
for me because the longer a client
works with me, the less I have to
think about the acquisition of new
clients and the less I have to think
about the acquisition of new clients.
Frankly, the easier it is to
maintain my own psychology, my
own internal regulation, and it
also allows me to focus elsewhere.
And it allows me to focus on.
new topic areas, increasing my
expertise or my knowledge in
different areas, increasing my
comfort and talking about those.
It allows me to shift my energy
toward the product and away
from the selling of the product.
So I want to be viewed as a utility.
Now there are a couple of
ethical questions there.
As a practitioner, you
would never want to.
Position your coaching or position
yourself as something that a client
needs, quote unquote needs, and that they
would be hurt if they were to lose it.
Then I think we're occupying an
unhealthy, maybe an unethical place where
we're manipulating our clients so that
we're achieving our financial goals.
Whether or not it's actually in their
best interest to keep working with us.
Now I trust my client to tell me whether
it's in their best interest to keep
working with me, but I want to make sure
that I'm not doing or saying anything
that would give the impression that I
think that they're not going to make it
without me or that they could only succeed
or be happy or be calm or whatever.
If I'm shown up in their zoom room
a couple of times a month, three
times a month, that's not right.
I never want to be that person.
Person I want to be is someone who
works with a client over the long term.
And in the 30th or 50th or 60th
session, we have a breakthrough.
We have a breakthrough that's built in
part on the longevity of our relationship.
You've heard me talk about this before
I don't need to belabor the point, but
I believe in long term support long term
coaching I Like to work with my own coach
or coaches for the long term and I like
to work with my clients for the long term
and if something is going to be utility,
it really has to have renewable value.
So you have to expect it to be worth
something new the next time you use it.
Side note, as I think about starting
a membership and I think about
memberships in general, memberships
don't have long term retention.
Because there isn't necessarily
something renewably valuable in them.
And I'm not claiming to have cracked that.
I don't know that I will crack that, a
software company could have retention
that runs into the years and years.
And most coaching memberships
have retention in the months.
Several months, even really
amazing, wonderful memberships
that I wouldn't criticize their
content or their intent or anything.
I think they're fantastic.
It just happens to be that after a
person's been in a membership for a
few months, maybe a year, most of the
members have extracted most of the value,
at least most of the perceived value.
And then they think to themselves, I think
I've got what this place has to offer me.
There's probably not.
Additional value in the
next month of membership.
And then they cancel.
In other words, it's an easy
thing to leave because nothing
significant is being lost.
No problem.
Those can still be amazing
businesses, but that's why.
I've had a cell phone for 20 something
years and why, if I join a coaching
membership, I may only stay a few months.
It's because the actual renewable
utility in those two things.
is completely different.
So when I think about my coaching and
when I think about the membership, I
create in both cases, the most important
question for me to ask myself, that may
be impossible to answer, but it would
be the most valuable question I could
ever answer would be what would make
this so renewably valuable and useful?
That a person in a very undramatic
way just starts to view it as a basic
utility in their life and their business.
What would its nature need to be?
What would its features need to be?
So that a person thinks to themselves,
sure, I'd love to not spend that
money that way, but no, actually I
do love to spend that money that way
because I just really like the thing.
It really does give me
this renewable utility.
If I cancel it, I lose something
that's important to me.
Now FOMO will keep people for a
while inertia where, and I've had
this happen with coaching clients
where a coaching client will say, I'm
afraid I'm going to miss our calls.
But I think I'm okay.
I think I'm ready to just
go work on my own for a while.
And in those moments, I'm always happy
to say, I totally agree with you.
You're doing fantastic.
So FOMO or inertia could keep
them in my coaching, but that's
not a strong enough reason.
The reason has to be utility.
So when the person comes to that moment,
whether it's with my coaching or with my
eventual membership, they've got to look
at that expense and the expense has to
be low enough relative to the renewable
value that they perceive that they
say yeah, of course I'm keeping that.
So the price is a factor in that if
the price is too high, it won't matter
that they see renewable utility.
They'll still have to say my alternative
use for that money is compelling
enough that I'm willing to give
up this utility for that utility.
Welcome to my econ undergraduate,
by the way, happy to all have
you in my econ one on one class.
So they're saying the 97 or one 97
or three 97 per month or whatever
it is that I'm spending on that.
I actually have a clear idea of how
I would use that money elsewhere in
a way that I would believe delivers
something more important to me.
I want my coaching to be priced at a
level that they look at the money they're
spending and what they're getting for it.
And they can't scan their life and find
a more compelling use for that money.
So the way I do that is two things.
Number one, I try to make the thing as
appealing and as useful as possible.
And number two, I try to keep
the price as low as possible.
That friend I was talking to
about her coaching prices.
When I said, my strategic view of
my pricing is that I want people to
hang around something like forever.
As long as we have a good relationship,
as long as they are excited to show up to
our next call, I want them as a client.
And she said, that's interesting because
it seems like almost every time I sell
a client at my prices, when we wrap up
the engagement, they say, I would love
to continue, but I can't afford it.
Now, do I think that means
her business model is wrong?
I don't.
I think there's a whole fantastic
strategic position where she says,
I am a person who people save up
to work with and work with once.
And it's amazing.
And they love it.
And I love it.
And when we're finished, they
look back on it with fondness.
And it was so great.
I think that's a viable business plan.
What it requires of that coach is
she always has to find new people.
Who will save up to work with her.
Now, does that mean she has to
work harder or more than I do?
No.
What it means is I spend more of my
working hours with clients because it's
easier for clients to work with me because
my prices are lower and she's likely to
spend more of her working hours thinking
about, waiting for, hoping for that
next client who saved up for a while.
To work with her is one
better than the other.
I don't think so One of those is more
comfortable and more appealing to
me and it's the one where I'm always
pretty busy my practice Bumping right
up against too busy building long term
relationships with clients enjoying them
so much Seeing breakthroughs small and
big having an opportunity to celebrate
those breakthroughs Being able to say
things like, Oh, I remember when we were
talking two summers ago, it's really
important to me to say things like that.
Oh, but this usually does
happen for you in September.
Remember two Septembers ago?
Remember last September?
It's really important to me to be
able to, to with my client, draw
those through lines across their
life experiences and across different
conditions and seasons in their life.
I find it deeply
meaningful and satisfying.
And if part of being able to do that and
enjoy that is keeping my coaching fees
comparatively low, they're still not low.
They're not low relative to therapy, for
example, but keeping them comparatively
low, if that supports those long term
relationships, I feel like I'm winning.
And I have the same thought about
the membership that I start.
I want the membership.
To be renewably useful, but I also
want its price to be low enough that
a person will look at that price and
say, I could probably pay that forever.
That's not an amount of money.
That I would ever look at
and say, Oh, I'm paying that.
Therefore I'm giving up this
other very important thing or
this other very appealing thing.
I want my price to be an,
and price not an or price.
In other words, I want my program to
be priced such that a person would say,
I'm in Mark's membership and I'm in this
other thing and I'm in that other thing.
If there were three, four or five
programs like mine, they could say,
I'm in these five programs and I love
this little bit and that little bit and
the other little bit from each of them.
That sounds fantastic to me.
Also as a consumer, I
would love to buy that.
I want to be able to drop in for a
while, drop back out, not feel like
I'm missing anything necessarily,
not feel like I'm wasting money.
I like that.
That feels good to me.
So I think that's how I've
got to set my stuff up.
But as you think about how to price
your coaching, I do think the pricing
episode I did months ago, I think
it's, there's some good stuff there.
But one new lens that I would introduce
on that pricing question is, does
your pricing lend itself to longer
term or shorter term relationships?
Neither is wrong.
If you're targeting longer relationships,
your price will reflect it.
And so will the rest of your strategy.
And if you're targeting
shorter relationships, then
your price will reflect that.
And so will the rest of your strategy.
But the food for thought I
would leave you with above all
else would be asking yourself
in what ways is my coaching a
utility that is renewably useful?
What are my ways of being, what are my
approaches that I take with my clients
that would help them to say, although
they would never use these words, my
coaching with him or her is a renewable.
Utility and benefit in my life.
I really wouldn't ever
want to be without it.
I would feel worse off without it.
Consider that.
I think it's one of the basic questions
that we have to answer in our coaching,
because I think it will really define
everything we do in our practices.
And with that, I'll talk to you next time.