Packaging Your Coaching Offering

Last week I shared a few tips and strategies for branding and selling yourself as a coach. Today what I really want to share with you is how to package your coaching engagements in a way that will help you close more deals, get more clients, and confidently take those clients through a structured process that delivers exactly what they’re looking for.

1. Identify your coaching style

Last week we talked about narrowing in on your niche as a way to get specific about what you do, but what’s the tone and style of how you work: Are you a tough-love coach? An intuitive coach? A step-by-step methodical coach?

A great way to find your true coaching style is by explaining to your best friend what you do. You want this to be someone who is familiar with your work but maybe doesn’t totally understand what you do for a living all day. Share with her a couple case studies of what you do. Better yet, grab your smart phone and hit “record” on the conversation. As you listen back on the conversation of “what you do,” you’ll start to see themes, common words, and phrases rise to the surface. And because you’re talking to your best friend, you’re not putting up any fronts or using confusing industry jargon.

2. Clarify your offering

The great thing about being a coach—or creative entrepreneur in general—is the flexibility and freedom to work with your clients any way you like. But this can be a double-edge sword that can leave your engagements feeling unstructured and as if you’re reinventing the wheel every time you work. It’s a trap I’ve seen far too many coaches fall in. Without a clarified offering, your potential dream client isn’t going to feel confident hiring you.

Start packaging your offerings by laying out:

• A list of topics and tools you use to help your clients throughout your engagement
• The frequency and duration in which you’ll work with your clients (how many sessions over how many weeks / months)
• How you meet with your clients (over the phone? in person? on Skype?)
• How much it costs and how you like to be paid

It’s important to note that your packaged offering (or offerings) is the thing that will change the most in your business. With each client you work with, you’ll see what works, what doesn’t, and refine and reiterate your offering and services (and positioning!) accordingly. So don’t be afraid that by defining an offering you’re boxing yourself in!

We get asked a lot how many packages you should offer – I think two is great and anything more than three gives your potential client too many options. (This is why we don’t believe in a la carte-ing your offerings either!)

3. Worksheets work!

Unless you’re an experienced coach with loads of confidence, going into a conversation without a solid process is super risky. The conversation can easily go off the rails leaving you and your client feeling all “WTF” by the end of the session. My best piece of advice is to structure your coaching sessions around specific homework exercises and worksheets! It’s doesn’t have to be anything fancy. These worksheets simply act as a conversation facilitator. They help you share (and remember!) your tools and how you help. Plus, they’ll help your client stay on track and feel like they’re actually “doing” something. It’s a win-win!

A worksheet can be tricked out with charts and graphs or it can be as simple as prompts followed by blank spaces available to fill in. Start by listing out all your typical tools. Imagine that you’re explaining them to your client and how much easier it would be to share these tools if you had them summed up in a worksheet! Grab a stack of paper and start sketching by hand what these exercises would look like. From there you can give you sketches to a designer to refine or DIY it.

————————–

Lastly, I want to share with you a worksheet to map out what your client’s situation looks like before they work with you and what they get when you’re done. Then, fill in how you as the coach or guide get from start to finish to get the results you want to deliver.