Episode 9 - If not time for money, then what? Scaling for coaches!
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the business of executive coaching. I'm Ellie Scarf, an ex lawyer turned executive coach. Over the last 17 years, I've coached in house, I've been an associate coach, and I've run executive coaching businesses with teams of coaches around the world. My clients have ranged from global brand names to boutiques, startups, and more.
and organizations doing good in the world. I now run the Impact Coach Collective, a community of executive coaches who want to level up their business skills and take action in a community of like minded peers. I'm a traveler, a reader, a mum, wife and dog parent, and I know firsthand that our stories have a huge impact on our businesses.
The executive coaching business is tough. And I've learnt all the lessons through plenty of mistakes, and also with some great mentors. This podcast is all about growing a thriving executive coaching business. [00:01:00] You can build a coaching business that is profitable, sustainable, and that supports your personal goals, whatever they are.
I'll be sharing tips and ideas translated for your context, as well as stories from the field with brilliant coaches and mentors. If you want to level up your executive coaching business skills, Then this is the place for you.
Hello and welcome to the business of executive coaching. We are just over a month out from the launch of our membership for executive coaches who want to build profitable and sustainable businesses that allow them to live life on their terms. If you think you'd like to learn more, please head over to elliescarf.com and you can read about the corporate coach collective to get some more information. So onto today's topic, which is all about scaling something that coaches will often think about at some point in their first [00:02:00] few years of business is this inevitable conclusion that we are limited by the amount of time and energy that we have available.
And what that means is that there is a limit to how much we can grow our businesses. That is no limit to how much we can grow personally. If we limit that available time because we have other priorities or other goals, so we have children or we want to train for a marathon or you want to, you know, we have a creative pursuit, then we may also be interested in exploring ways that we can scale our coaching business.
But what do I mean by scale? I mean, how can we put in place offers or solutions in our, in our product suite that can grow and can make more revenue without necessarily requiring more of our time. So I thought I would share today just a few ways that I have seen executive coaches add strings to their bow that can supplement their coaching practice and potentially build new revenue streams [00:03:00] that are not tied to a time for money equation.
I want to say before I dive in though, that there is an investment of time that comes with any of these options. A lot of the time is upfront, but we shouldn't assume that the investment of time is only upfront. It's not actually a case of build it. And they are. But they will come. This is not truly passive income.
There is a lot of marketing and sales that is required. And yes, it can be fruitful if you do it correctly. But don't think it's an easy option. It's absolutely not. What it is, is a, a different type of activity and one that can in theory scale exponentially where our coaching practices, which are largely one on one cannot.
So that's what to keep in mind. So the first option you could consider if you want a scalable option in your, in your business is [00:04:00] digital courses. So digital courses are where you have identified that there is a need in a particular group for some sort of training based intervention. That you believe can be delivered in a virtual capacity, right?
So through watching videos, not just through in person and you may likely already have a lot of that IP, even if it's not necessarily in the form of a, a workshop yet. What you would do then is present your approach and your IP in a series of video lessons. So that is a digital course. And that is what my, I have a digital course it's called the corporate to coach blueprint.
It is eight modules and 36 lessons and an extensive workbook that people work through as they are building the foundations of their coaching business. In theory with digital courses, you invest the time upfront to develop and film the course, and then you sell it repeatedly. Now [00:05:00] I've heard a lot of people talk about how, you know, you, you make money while you're sleeping.
You can make money while you're lying on the beach. And that is true, but there is a lot of work that is involved in marketing these products because otherwise no one is going to see them. So you certainly won't be making sales while you're on the beach. You will need to go down the path of you know, one of the four main ways of marketing, which are warm outreach, cold outreach, advertising, and organic content to promote your digital course.
And it could even be more intensive than promoting your coaching services, I would say, because you're likely to be selling them to individuals. Now, digital courses, there is also a really good opportunity to sell those to your corporate clients alongside your coaching, where you identify themes or challenges or opportunities where it's not feasible for the company to invest in one on one coaching to everyone in a, in a [00:06:00] particular cohort.
So bonus points, if, if you want to sell your digital course to organizations, Bonus points if they plug into LMS systems. So look at what platform you use. And, and also remember that you can sell digital courses also as a way in to opening up a broader organization sorry, a broader audience within an organization that you may not have had access to because a digital course is likely a more accessible price point.
And similarly, a digital course for that reason can open up a broader audience of individuals. Who may be working in organizations that have not been able to pay for your services because of the cost of coaching. So there are definitely options to sell digital courses to individuals, but also to organizations.
The second category that I wanted to share is digital products. Now, digital products differ from digital courses in that they are not educational videos. They tend [00:07:00] to be things like worksheet. Guides, eBooks, assessments and these are often a good way to dip your toe in the waters of selling digital offers.
So you can see if you like it, if you're willing to do the work that is required in selling them, but it could also be something that you sell as an add on. To a corporate program. So if you are either running coaching or training program, you may have a digital product that could be an option for companies to buy alongside that.
So, you know, an ebook for everyone or a cheat sheet or a guide. It can also be really good to have a low cost offer because it just gives a broader range of people a chance to work with you. And it's a, an easier decision for them to make. So they might be able to decide, Oh yeah, I'm just going to download this resource.
I'll buy that because it is at a reasonable price point. And then they can say, okay, well, I'm more [00:08:00] likely to then want to work with this coach because I know a bit more in my. No like, and trust factors are sitting a bit higher. So that's one option, but again can be a lot of marketing involved. The third scaled offer is group programs.
So some of you may already have this, but a typical group program is a facilitated course. That takes place over a number of weeks or months where there is generally a price for an individual that is lower, but for you, the overall revenue is higher because you aim to get a certain amount of people in the program.
So a lot of the work in programs is in the design and the delivery. But you can also leverage, you know, often people get a lot of really good outcomes for doing. Coaching style work in a group program because of the interaction with others. So, you know, there can be positive results off the back of it.
You could offer [00:09:00] them one on one coaching. You could offer ongoing group coaching. There's a lot that you can do after successfully running a program. Another version of a group program could be running a retreat or a one off event, something like a planning day or a reflective retreat. Where you can take a group of people through an experience that may be similar to what they might do in a coaching program.
So you might do like a psychometric assessment or something like that. But it's done in a group. And, and for you, what that means is that you can impact. a larger number of people, but you can also scale the amount of income that you can bring in. And you tend to do the work of design once and you may tailor it, but, but that work is, is done early on.
So it can be quite easy. Scalable in that regards, you do need to think about your personality though, for some people holding groups and group facilitation is really not their style. So you [00:10:00] need to reflect on what do you like, what don't you like, and whether or not that is likely to be something that you would enjoy.
And you also remember it's, it's actually not as easy as it sounds to, to get people enrolling in group programs. There needs to be a lot of marketing again in that. So the best bet would, it would be if you have people who are asking you for something. So. People who are begging you to run a program or, you know, have mentioned it.
They're the sort of things where you would want to start. And my tip for all of these sorts of things is sell it before you build it. So make sure that you have enough enrollments to make it, you know, feasible. Before you start the work of design. So make sure that you built in enough time and it's very common for course for program facilitators to build it as they go.
So you would build the outline, but then let's say you're delivering content every week for an eight week program. Program, [00:11:00] you could deliver it sorry, develop the content each week as you go. And that means that you're adapting to the feedback that you're receiving and the the discussions in the group.
And so it's very you know, relevant. The fourth option is to look at membership or subscription models. So membership models are when you have people join you for a fixed cost per month or year, and then there is something that they regularly receive in return. So the thoughts, sorts of things that might be included in a membership or a subscription model are content.
So some sort of regular training there might be some sort of regular coaching that or mentoring that, that is involved. There might be a community that is facilitated or is sort of self managed by the members. There could be resources or templates or new tools added on a monthly basis. There could be activities or challenges or accountability processes that happen every month.
They could be guest [00:12:00] experts. Often there will be access to you at regular times for, you know, Q and a or informal mentoring or formal coaching whatever that is. You may grant access to a tool or a resource or a, you know, a library of content for a period of time generally a library that is being regularly updated with new information coming in.
I would say that, you know, like the scars, the limit with membership or subscription models, you can be quite creative, but I would say this is not for everyone because it is a. Long term commitment. So if you're the sort of person who gets bored with things, don't do this. Don't start a membership because you will be locked in.
And if you decide to change your mind partway through a membership period, you have a lot of tricky work. Undoing, you know, committed payments which you may have spent all of that sort of thing. So just be mindful of, of that. And also remember it can take a long time to build a [00:13:00] membership that is large enough to be profitable.
It's not an easy thing. Again, on the plus side, as I said, you get to build a membership about what you love doing, like that, you know, if people want to join, you can put what you want in your membership. You can have it be a coaching membership where you offer a live coaching session every week or office hours every week.
And people come and they duck in as, and when they need it, or you could have a membership with no live content at all, where you you know, provide a A worksheet or a recorded video every month. So whatever it is, you know, of course you price it accordingly. And just remember you will have to be constantly marketing because people will leave the membership and to make it profitable, you need to have a constant stream of people joining it.
The fifth one I want to share today is that you could create a licensing arrangement [00:14:00] around content that you have developed. So if you have IP for a program that you have developed, whether that is a leadership program, management program, coaching skills, you name it. You can create a facilitator guide and a train the trainer program, and then license that program to any clients you have that want to deliver this program at scale, or even to other coaches or trainers who would like to offer the program, but who don't want to develop materials themselves, who either don't have the time or the inclination to do that.
So those are five options. I'll put a few links in the show notes about where you can learn more about some of these options. Specifically, I'm thinking of Tina Tower, who runs a brilliant program that I have gone through in relation to building digital courses. So I'll put that link in there. So you can have a look, feel free to drop me a line.
If you have any more questions, I've tried a few of [00:15:00] these. So I have experimented with a number of these options and continue, you know, they form the basis of a lot of the work that I do now. So the corporate to coach collective is an example of a membership community. The corporate to coach blueprint is an example of a digital course.
And I also have. Run group programs and have licensed certain programs as well, which is interesting. So what about you? Do you want to build a scalable offer alongside your coaching offer? Or do you think coaching is enough for now? Don't forget that having an offer that you sell to coaching decision makers Which I call a coaching adjacent offer can also be a great strategy for getting known and trusted by those folks who make decisions within organizations about coaching.
So you may develop another offer, not just for scaling purposes, but also as a coaching business development strategy. So there's a lot in it. It can take a lot of work, so you need to [00:16:00] make sure you're up for it in terms of development, but also marketing, which is the biggest part of it. I'd say, thanks for listening.
And I'll be back with more next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of the business of executive coaching. If you found it helpful, please share it with a colleague or friend on LinkedIn. And don't forget to tag me so I can say thanks. I would be tremendously grateful also if you would leave a review on Apple podcasts. More reviews means more people can find us.
This episode was brought to you by the Impact Coach Collective, where executive coaches grow their businesses in a community of peers with business education, mentoring, deal clinics, and more. If you'd like to contact me or work with me further, all my free resources, courses, and more info on the Impact Coach Collective can be found at elliescarf.com. Have a brilliant week, and I look forward to talking to you again [00:17:00] soon.
