One-on-one coaching can be an incredibly rewarding experience.
As you go through each session with a client, you can provide personalized help and address each obstacle they face in real-time. Seeing the transformation and improvement in the person’s life, career, or health (or all three!) is something that many coaches consider the main reason they enter the field in the first place.
But at the same time, individual coaching sessions can be limiting. At least when looking at them from a professional standpoint.
You can only help so many people at once, as there’s also a limited number of hours each day. What’s more, you end up trading dollars for hours, which can reduce your earning potential as well.
That’s why creating coaching packages can be the most transformative thing you can do as a coach.
When you package your process and systemize how you help clients, there’s virtually no limit to how many clients you can help. You can mix and match one-on-one and group coaching, provide additional resources that clients can use themselves, and even build a community that will enhance your services even further. And all of these aspects are key when starting and running a successful coaching business.
With that in mind, let’s explore some of the main benefits that coaching packages can offer, the types of coaching packages you can use, and the key elements that every coaching package should include.
Why Package Your Coaching Services?
As a coach, it’s easy to get into a cycle of working with clients and neglecting the business side of your career. But even though developing coaching packages does take time, their advantages are well worth the effort.
Let’s explore five compelling reasons to switch to a packaged-based coaching business below.
Zero-In on Your Ideal Clients
If you’re going to grow your business and systemize the way you work, you will need to develop a detailed ideal client profile that you can use for everything you do. And the good news is, creating coaching packages can actually be immensely helpful in making that happen.
That’s because when you package your services, you will need to go through the entire process of working with clients. You’ll need to look at things like the typical problems your clients face, the method you use to help them address those challenges, and the specific resources and tools that facilitate making that happen.
As you go through these aspects of your work, you will discover the ideal type of client that gets the most out of what you have to offer. Of course, you will also probably find less-than-ideal clients and might not be a good fit. But then, it will only be a matter of focusing your efforts on those that you can help the most.
Build More Value
Taking your coaching business to the next level requires you to maximize the value you have to offer. And while individual coaching might seem like the most valuable product you can offer, systemizing and packaging your services might actually bring more structure and allow you to pile on value using various resources and tools at your disposal.
Instead of just trading your time for money, you can create an entire system where individual or group coaching is combined with courses, external resources, tools, Q&A sessions, and even an active community of peers that can be immensely helpful without your active participation.
Provide Multiple Price Points
As a coach, you have probably already discovered that not all of your clients fall into the same financial bracket. And when working in-person, there’s a limit to how many people you can take on, which is why you have to maintain certain rates to meet your financial goals.
But as you develop coaching packages and systemize your work, you can start creating a tier-based system, where people who can’t afford your complete program can still enjoy a simpler or less personal version of your coaching for a lower price.
This way, you can actually help more people without compromising your earnings and maximize the time you have available to grow your business.
Increase Earnings Potential
As you’ve probably gathered from the previous benefits, developing coaching packages provides a considerable boost to your earnings potential. If you implement the right group coaching framework and figure out how many people you’re comfortable taking on, you can grow your income to levels that would not be possible otherwise.
But most importantly, you can do so without compromising on the quality and the effectiveness of your services. In fact, the additional resources and the community element can only enhance the value you provide and make people even happier than if they were working without the refined system in place.
When you use an all-in-one coaching platform like Upcoach, you can implement powerful features without technical knowledge, automating various processes and scaling your coaching as much as you want.
Types of Coaching Packages
Before you can build the right coaching package for your business, it’s essential to go through the main types of coaching packages that you could consider. That will help you figure out the type of business model you want to pursue depending on the types of results you can offer and your typical journey with a client.
Let’s explore them below.
Focused on One Result
The first coaching type that many coaches end up going with is a single-result-focused coaching package. This type of coaching is designed around a single and very specific outcome, which you can help your clients achieve.
This result should be something at the very core of what you can offer. You should have a solid understanding of how to make it happen for your ideal clients, a proven track record of past successes you can leverage, and the ability to deliver the promised result within a specific timeframe.
For instance, if you’re designing business coaching packages, you could offer to improve your client’s business revenue by 15% in two months. That type of specificity in your offer will be impossible to ignore to the right prospective client, which will draw plenty of people and will allow you to choose the ones who you can help the most.
The good thing about this coaching package type is that you can plan out your time and workload as you want, which gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of how busy or how free you want to be.
For example, if you want to reduce your workload, just take on fewer clients on the next round or productize your coaching so that you have to be less involved.
Ongoing Results
The second coaching package type is the one that focuses on continuous results. Instead of having a single-result-driven offer that has a limited time to be accomplished, you would provide continuous support and guidance for your clients, helping them overcome obstacles and achieve goals as they move forward in their journey.
You can still use time frames when using this type of model, but they will typically be much longer. And sometimes, you may have indefinite coaching packages as well. For instance, if you’re a life coach, you could help clients continually work on their goals, crystalize their vision, and move through obstacles, educating them and also providing guidance on specific issues.
But with this type of coaching, you would be less focused on a single result and more on the specific benefits that your coaching can offer throughout the relationship with each client. However, just because there isn’t a single goal doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be specific.
It’s still important to provide a clear idea of the specific things your coaching can bring to the table, talking about your areas of expertise, success stories of other clients, and anything else that might make your offer more enticing.
Key Elements of a Coaching Package Template
If you’re going to package your services, you need a reliable system for structuring the offer, the presentation, and the program itself. And that’s why a coaching packages template can be very useful, especially if you haven’t systemized your coaching into a package before.
The good news is that while coaching packages can seem complicated, they can actually be broken down into actionable steps that coaches in any field and of all experience levels can leverage into an appealing package that will attract the right customers.
Let’s go over some of the key elements your coaching packages should include so that you gain a better understanding of what will be required.
- Your Story. No matter how much you automate and systemize your coaching packages, they will still begin with who you are as a coach. People are looking for someone they can relate to and (even more importantly) someone they believe can help them, so you need to tell them who you are, what you have achieved, who you have helped, and why you can help them.
- The Result. Next, you need to talk about the specific big promise that your coaching can deliver. Whether it’s transforming someone’s life, business, or health, you need to tell them exactly what you can do for them and why they should believe you.
- Duration. Whether you’re using the single-result or the ongoing model, you should still talk about the duration of your program. If there’s no set duration, you should position it as a benefit of continuous support and guidance.
- Involvement. It’s good to figure out how involved you’ll want to be in the program and how much of the learning materials will be automated. Be upfront about how much personal time your clients can expect, as you want to establish the expectations early so that you can match and exceed them later.
- The System. The system is at the very core of any successful coaching package. The framework and methodology of your layout is a huge incentive to join, as it points to a proven process that people can use to achieve the goals that they desire.
- Courses & Supporting Materials. A coaching package needs to have learning materials that add value and move the clients forward without you having to be present at all times. And the more of the materials are automated, the more clients you can take on, which increases the size to which you can grow your coaching business.
- Bonus Materials. Bonuses are a great way to get the people who are on the fence about joining your coaching program to commit. The added value is a great motivator, at least if you can make it relevant and use the bonus materials to enhance the original course. You can use almost anything that you do over time when creating bonuses, including group coaching sessions or even seminars, as long as you record them.
- In-Person Support. If you want to increase the perceived value of your courses and charge premium prices, you might want to consider offering some in-person support to your clients. While that may become harder as you take on more clients, you should at least consider including Q&A sessions where people can get their most pressing questions answered by you on a regular basis.
- Community. A big part of what makes coaching packages so appealing is the ability to share experiences with peers. Therefore, you’d benefit from nurturing a community around your program where people could get answers, gain a motivation boost, and stay on track through the more challenging stretches of their journey.
- Payment Options. Some of your clients won’t be able to pay the full amount for your coaching package upfront. When that happens, you could consider implementing a plan that spreads out the payments and unlocks different sections of your coaching as they progress.
Bottom Line
Coaching packages are a great way to help more people and maximize your earnings potential. But for them to be helpful, you must take a systemic approach to creating your packages, adding value, and positioning them to attract the very best clients you can help the most.
The list above serves as a good starting point for the things you should consider including. It should give you plenty to work with as you learn more about who you want to target and how to make your offer stand out from the other coaches in your market.