The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 73: Choosing the Right Program
In today’s episode we are going to cover all the different types of programs and how do you choose which one to do. We are going to dig into all of the goodies and give you ideas on how to create some really fun and exciting programs for your audience.
Choosing the Right Program
By Melissa Lin
Today I want to talk about how to determine whether a program's right for you and how to determine the right type of program. There are a lot of different options for programs. You could do freebie downloads, courses, group programs, masterminds, memberships or private coaching. It can be overwhelming to decide which one to join. In this blog post we will explore each program, what it entails and who each one is for.
Every single person reading this has downloaded freebie after freebie after freebie, to try and learn what they are trying to learn. Freebies are so informational and so great. They are very high level and don’t go into a ton of detail. You don't dig very deep into the content. It's a lead magnet and this is something that's given away for free to add value to you. It’s designed to give you a quick win and if you're not 100% sure if that person is the right coach for you, go download some of their freebies to see if you like the vibe of it. See if you like the feel of it or purchase one of their lower ticket courses to really get a better vibe of how they are as a coach. There are so many different coaching styles so this is a good way to determine if their style is right for you.
Freebies are so great. However, if you're really here to do some pretty big things in 2020, like hit six figures, freebies aren't going to cut it. However, it's a great tool for getting started. Please don't be a freebie junkie where all you do is download freebie after freebie. It's going to take you so much longer to get where you want to go.
Freebies are only going to take you so far. The next thing that we can go into is membership sites. A membership is a low ticket investment. Typically it's monthly and most memberships give you some accountability but they don't give you private access. The accountability typically is in some kind of Facebook group where they help answer your questions but don't always have any type of high touch. They might have a master class every month or maybe two throughout the month on certain topics, maybe a Q&A, live video or training where you hop on for 30 minutes. However, they're giving you guidance and content, just not the high touch you would get in other programs. It's meant to help you move the needle forward and you may, if you implement every single thing and really utilize the support and the membership, you definitely can go far in a membership for your business and it gives you such a great taste of what it's like to work with this coach as well.
So, as I mentioned, if you're not sure about a coach, you can opt in to one of their memberships and get a really good taste of them before going in and investing big time in a group program or private coaching.
If you girls know me, I love creating courses. Courses are passive income. So if you're really looking to gain more knowledge in one specific area, courses would be great. Courses are great because they are self paced, you can take your time or go as fast as you want. You also typically get access for life. Courses give you more knowledge in one specific area. They typically will have video trainings inside to teach you the content and some worksheets to follow along. Then they give action items to take however, they don't include access to a coach for questions.
Usually they have a Facebook group to answer questions as you go through the course, but not all. So if that's something that you definitely need or are looking for, make sure to check with the sales page or DM the coach selling the course, whether that's included or not.
For those of you that you're thinking about possibly purchasing a course from somebody but you want additional support, a group program will be your answer.
In group programs the coach can now shift from one to one to one to many. Our goals are to help and serve as many people as we can on this earth while we're here. At least that's one of my big goals. The way that group programs are typically structured is not cookie cutter. There is usually some type of communication portal for the group to chat to each other and then ask the coach questions. Sometimes there's video training that comes along with it. Sometimes there's a course that comes along with it so it can be run in many ways.
Not every group program will have a library training, a vault or a library of all of the coursework. Some group programs teach you on the calls. So inside of that there's usually some accessibility to the coach, but typically not one-on-one. It's a group program, so it's typically not private one on one where you're hopping on private calls with the coach. Typically it's mostly group coaching calls that are included in a group program. And at the end we're done.
Masterminds and Group Program terminology gets a little twisted because a lot of people actually mix and don't utilize the word mastermind properly. A mastermind is similar but different. It is a group program where you're at a high level and all of the people inside of the group instead of the mastermind are also helping each other. So it's not just the coach that's coaching. All of the people in the mastermind are also helping each other and giving feedback and giving tips and things like that and coaching each other while you've got your coach that's leading the mastermind.
The structure is very similar to a group program. The way that I've run my masterminds is I will give some type of private coaching because my masterminds are usually a little higher level than my group programs. So I do have the group group coaching aspect, but I also give private access to me as well. So it's a hybrid of one-on-one and group inside of the mastermind.
Private coaching is usually the highest level of support that most coaches provide and typically is the highest investment. The structure can be anything. It all depends on the coach. Some coaches will give you unlimited coaching calls per month. Some will give you two coaching calls per month. Some will give you four coaching calls per month. It really depends on the coach, where you are in your business, and where you're wanting to go. You usually get access to everything that they have that’s super cool about private coaching.
Those are some of the differences between all of the different types of programs out there, courses and memberships, how they're run, that type of accessibility to the coach.
If you're just starting now here's some of the recommendations. If you're just starting your business, I definitely recommend a group program or a course. You don't need one-on-one coaching. When you're in the beginning stages it’s great to be part of a community and surround yourself with other people who are also very like minded, wanting to do it with others because as you're starting to branch into the entrepreneur world, and I know this from personal experience, not everybody in your personal life is going to understand and it can feel very, very lonely because this is not the norm for everybody.
If you've been in this for a while now and you've been coaching for a bit, I recommend a mastermind or one-on-one, you know, not many of the higher level of coaches have many one-on-one spots available because of the high touch. I'm only going to have four or five private coaching slots open for all of 2020 however, a mastermind gives you the community plus the networking that will beneficial to you as you scale. And that networking piece is huge as you're scaling your business and really continuing to scale.
Investing helps you get that fast pass to where you want to go. All of my investments that I've made have always made such an incredible return. Huge ROI. Yours will too, if you put in the work. I hope this was helpful. I really am so excited to see you all be investing in yourselves and your businesses in 2020 it's going to be an incredible year for so many of you.
Topics we cover include:
Who you should work with?
Diving into Freebies
Memberships
Courses and what goes into them
Group Programs and the structure
Masterminds
And so much more!
Times to check out:
(5:10) Find someone you vibe with
(7:44) Let’s chat about freebies
(11:28) What is a membership site
(14:07) Courses and passive income
(18:32) Group Programs and what goes into them
(21:32) Masterminds and how to utilize it properly
(23:21) 1:1 Coaching
(25:31) How to decide which program to do
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