How One Client Shifted From Offline One-To-One Workshops To A Virtual Training Company
When Mark hired me for private one on one consultation and we spent a full VIP day together in my downtown offices, he was exhausted, struggling to make more money and had more clients than he could handle. Read that carefully: He was exhausted. He needed to make more money. He already had a ton of clients and couldn’t keep up! His entire team was local, and so were his clients. However, he wasn’t charging what he was worth and was delivering ENORMOUS value to his clients. This problem is not so unique. I see it all the time.
His model was built around doing full day consultations and two-three day workshops. As I reviewed all of the content on his website, I was both excited and sad for him. He was sitting on an easy $5 million dollar business and was no where near that in profits because he wasn’t charging enough. He also didn’t have anything going on through his Facebook page and he had no information products- digital classes that people could buy anytime of the day and get their training virtually.
The first course of action for Mark was to help him realize how much he was worth, that he deserved to be paid this and that if he did indeed charge more, he wouldn’t lose clients, he’d actually gain higher paying ones. If he did lose clients, they probably weren’t his best people to be working with anyways. (Remember- he was exhausted! We see this a LOT in codependent-style businesses where the clients are sucking the life out of the business owner). I will never forget the deep breath he took and the long sigh that followed. “This has been a long time problem in my business and my family history.” He went on to share how he had even relocated to another COUNTRY it was so bad.
His story was one where becoming an entrepreneur and stepping into his destiny cost him nearly everything. With a long family history of struggle, living way below one’s potential and then someone in the blood line rising up to be more, he had endured a lot of persecution. Maybe some of YOU can relate?
Hearing his story of how people had judged him, ridiculed him and how he was pretty much rejected by most of the friends and family in his circle, I had tears in my eyes. Here was a man who was incredibly gifted and talented. He provided an incredible service to his clients. He was literally anointed by God to do this, it was so obvious. Yet… he had to move across the ocean to find freedom. What a powerful testimony, showing a relentless desire and commitment to do whatever it takes. Then the hard part started. It was TIME to up his rates.
As he planned his next workshop, he was excited and terrified. I knew personally how that felt. If he could actually get clients to pay what I showed him he was worth, this would mean he could not only get more staff, lower his stress, have greater personal satisfaction (A BIG thing he was seeking! Feeling great about his life and business) but he could work 1/4th of the normal hours he was putting in and be making MORE money. Well, I’m happy to say he took the leap! But what happened next was really unexpected.
As soon as he stepped into his power, doors began to fly open! He received contact from a governmental program and they wanted to give him a grant. Essentially, he was going to be paid a very large sum to allow them to send their contacts to his next workshop. This ended up earning him a $450,000 contract! While this was great news, it was also disheartening to see.
Exhilarated by all of these changes and the immediate result, we moved forward. But I knew this is where the real hard work would begin. He had made the initial decision to follow through on my consulting (charge what he’s worth!) , but now he had to do the hardest part– bring some of his work online. TOTALLY online. He also had to invest into regular, daily Facebook Ads to grow his business page so that he had highly targeted clients there as well. He also would need to BUILD his email list.
When someone is able to make a lot of money offline and they need to make the leap to creating info products online (digital versions) it’s a whole new territory. When he cut his hours way down, he had a new problem on his hands. A LOT of higher paying clients started flocking to his offices wanting his help! NOW he had the opportunity to make even more money, but sadly, his schedule was getting PACKED again. He had a few new assistants and office workers to help with the load, but his personal life was still jam packed and oftentimes, neglected. He STILL had the biggest problem on his hand that he came to me for.
The real root of the problem wasn’t a lack of customers, it wasn’t poor time management and it wasn’t even a situation where his industry required more one on one consultation as so many believe. It’s an issue of priorities. I consulted Mark that he had to be willing to make the hard choices and to stop being driven by the capacity to simply make money.
So many small business owners will do anything to just keep their doors open, to make payroll or to have money in the bank. Sadly, they don’t realize that every time they make a decision in this desperate posture, they close the doors to all they could have.
If Mark wanted to increase his profits and free up more time for himself and his family, he was going to have to take some of his trainings into a virtual platform. This meant specific strategies were going to have to be implemented to ‘translate’ his teachings into an online platform. I consulted Mark that when he did this, it was important to realize and understand that we can’t just take our courses online and think we’ll have the same results. We might need to adjust how we present things, it might require more detailed explanations for topics that were many times ‘common knowledge’ in his live events. IF he was willing to do this, he also was going to have to turn down some opportunities that were happening locally, so that he COULD do what he wanted to do virtually. Let me say this clear and loud: Turning away opportunities is one of, if not THE biggest challenge this kind of leader, business model and structure will face. I see about 10% who will do it. Some are addicted to opportunities like a drug, because it’s so good for the ego and their business image. But this DOES NOT create the kind of legacy most want.
The biggest weakness a coaching or consulting business can have is building everything around a one to one model. So, Mark was going to have to take some of his big event sessions, for starters, and find what would actually sell well online and what would be best to leave out.
We reviewed his entire 12 hour event recordings, with each topic divided into 45 minute-1 hour increments. As I went over all of the things he was teaching in his workshops, only 60% were sellable online. A lot of what he taught face to face people could easily just get for free on YouTube, so it was going to be critical that he make his content focused on what he did very well, exclusively, and uniquely, so that people would be willing to pay him for it. Ideally, over and over again.
If I owned Mark’s business I would back off from 50% of all of my face to face workshops, meetings and appointments. I’d set up a studio-like room where I could record my highest-level coaching and trainings. This would entail an expense of about $300-500 for good lighting, backgrounds, etc. But it is a minimal expense, considering every one of his trainings could be sold for $77-197. Imagine if he sold 5000 in one month? That’s $385k-$1 million in sales!
My biggest challenge with someone like Mark is that as soon as they do decide to do something in the online space, they get sloppy and go too fast. Unfortunately, because it can be super easy to produce such a course, many people simply don’t take the time to do their due diligence with the entire process and customer experience. When Mark sent me his first sales page and opt in offer page, I saw this happening. He was going so fast and was MORE focused on ‘launching’ then he was delivering high quality and value. He was more excited about all the potential money he could make than making sure the customer experience was excellent. When a drive for opportunity turns to a drive for LAUNCH, we have again, a big problem.
This is where our consultations are now. Making sure that as he shifts his industry to 50% online trainings, that he doesn’t lose his reputation, quality of content and customer experience. Only time will tell if he can make this happen. I have no doubt I could turn his business into a $10 million business! On a side note, I’d be spending 80% of my time building my customer lists and social media pages, if it were me. Having a huge customer base of highly targeted prospects is imperative in the online world. I see way too many people obsess about creating their courses and not paying any attention (or a only a inconsistent amount) of time to this priority.
It’s crucial that copywriting, the entire direct response marketing funnel, proper follow up and the entire customer experience be paid extra attention to in the online world. There are pieces that don’t exist in an offline space, for example, email deliverability and doing Facebook Ads. But this is where I excel and it’s my very favorite thing to work on with small business owners.
Do you own a coaching or consulting business and you have the SAME problems Mark did? Tell me about it below in the comments. I’d love to help you!
If you’d like to see me remake, reinvent and redo other small businesses like Marks, join me in my BRAND NEW Inner Circle Coaching and Mastermind Group. Every month applications are submitted and I will work through 2-3 businesses. Watching me do this every month is a very powerful way to not only find out what you COULD do in your business, but it will also show you where you might be making some very big errors, and how to course- correct those.
Join me! This month’s training starts this week! http://www.arealchange.com/innercircle
With love,
Sandi Krakowski
