Are you a coach-shaped-person who’s been chugging along for a couple of years or more and you’re wondering to yourself ‘why aren’t I making more money by now..?

Yes, you love the impact you make with individual clients. But you could do without the revenue rollercoaster.

Does it feel like you’re give, give, giving with your emails, LinkedIn posts, blogs, guest interviews etc. but not getting enough back in return…?

If so, that’s what this blog is about — understanding why you’re not getting a reliable healthy income month after month, despite having been running your coaching business for years and getting the most amazing results for people.

Let’s go!

1. What do I mean by ‘your coaching offer’

First off, let’s define what I mean by ‘coaching offer’. There are a few moving parts to it and each one holds a different piece of the puzzle as to how you can earn more without working your little socks off.

My definition of a coaching offer:

A coaching offer is a service offer packaged up to appeal to a particular profile of client who wants to solve a specific problem or achieve a certain goal through being coached. 

I break down coaching offers into three components. 

My three Ps of a ‘sizzling hot’ offer are:

• The Promise
• The Package 
• The Price

There’s a lot that goes into a really compelling offer! 

These three separate elements can be crafted so that they attract your favourite types of people and so that you’re doing work 100% in your heartland. Satisfying, fulfilling, valuable work. 

I compare coaching programmes to journeys — helping people navigate from one unsatisfactory dwelling to a better one. 

Some coaching clients will have a destination in mind. 

Some won’t.

Some clients have clear outcome they want to move towards.

Some people will be more focused on moving away from feeling a certain way or being in a certain situation.

The articulation of this transformation, from being stuck in one place to being able to move towards a better one is what I call ‘the promise’.

The package is both the road from place A to place B and the vehicle. I’ll explain more about that in a bit.

The price they’ll pay to work with you is the fare. They’re paying to get somewhere different, as well as to be transported there with you as their coach.

Why am I digging into all this terminology and defining everything?

Because the three biggest reasons why coaches aren’t earning more is:

• Their inability to call effectively to their best fit clients and generate leads and sales efficiently
• Them not being able to explain clearly enough how valuable their help is
• And not charging enough per client to be able to earn the money they need to made a decent living from coaching. 

And if the people pleaser in you wants appeasing on all this hard-nosed money-making stuff, know this- if you don’t tell your best fit clients that they need to work with you they might either go and work with a rip off merchant or not work with anyone and remain stuck for another few decades until their demise.

Ok there’s an option 3…

They could work with another coach who’s actually quite good and nice

But I’m going to assume you didn’t become a coach just to watch all your perfect fit clients walk past you and into the arms of someone else!

So I’m going to tackle each P in turn and show you how to address those three issues in your own coaching business.

The promise of a coaching offer

The promise is the messaging that surrounds your offer. How you describe it. Who it calls to. What problems it aims to solve.

I call it ‘the promise’ because it’s what you’d love to be able to promise someone that they could achieve if they were an absolutely perfect fit client who was ready, willing and able to do the work with you right now. 

Think about the most satisfying clients that you’ve worked with. What outcomes were you able to help them move towards?

What would you have been able to promise these people?

N.B. It doesn’t matter whether they got where they said they wanted to go or not, as long as they were happy.

Many coaching clients think they want to get to X but when you help them to get to Z they’re over the moon. Many humans don’t know exactly where they want to get until they get there, do they!

Now, in reality you wouldn’t promise specific outcomes to clients.

Their results are down to them.

They have to be ready to do the work.

And sometimes big life happenings get in the way and they’re unable to move forwards as quickly as you’d both like.

But the word ‘promise’ is useful short-hand for the energy of what we want to be able to achieve with your messaging.

Plus it begins with P which makes for neat mnemonic for me. 😜

How do you define a really good ‘promise’ for your service offer?

Check out how to validate and research your coaching service messaging in my blog How to make sure your service offer will definitely sell: A step-by-step guide.

Don’t have time to read that?

The short version is that you:

• Get clear on what those perfect fit clients look like
• Do some research to gather where they are and want they want in their own words
• Pull the gems into some key messages and your overarching promise

Yes, all easier said than done. Which is why I created The Freedom Giver. Read all about it here and see if it’d be a good fit for you.

But Janine, I like to work with a variety of different coaching clients!

Yes. A lot of people do! That just means that you need more than one offer. 

Mind you, I’ve had loads of clients who thought they didn’t want to ‘niche‘ and wanted to stay ‘a generalist’ but after a couple of simple questions it turns out they do have a preferred client type lurking under the surface.

I had one such client called Dylan, a financial coach. He thought he had to keep his messaging for his main one-to-one offer vague because he dealt with so many different types of people in varying financial situations. 

It soon became clear that his sweet spot was with working with creative freelancers who had a lot of money coming in but they didn’t know how to handle it- it would run through their fingers. They wouldn’t even know whether they could afford to buy a house or save for retirement. And there he was trying to include people who were in debt in this messaging. Impossible without totally muddying the water! 

Kicking yourself because you feel like you should be able to do this on your own?

It’s nigh on impossible to nail this offer positioning malarky without external help because you’re just too close to it.

Plus I have a keen nose for this type of thing; trained over many years of helping other people with their offers. 

If this has hit a nerve, check out The Freedom Giver and see if it’d be a good fit for you.

The package of a coaching offer

Whereas the promise matches your messaging to where clients are now versus where they want to be; the package is the journey between those two points.

Clients who decide to work with you get in your vehicle (your coaching service) and the journey you go on together can be described as ‘the client success pathway’. 

I know, ‘client success pathway’ sounds a bit dry, doesn’t it? Answers on a postcard for a more fun name please!

The client success pathway is a series of steps that you know the client is likely to need to take to get them to where they want to go.

I know what you’re going to say!

For many coaches having a step-by-step process isn’t possible. 

After all, pure coaching is turning up ready for the client to lead the way (you’re not the driver in the vehicle, the coachee is!)

When you don’t or can’t have a step-by-step process, you can explain how you help people with ‘pillars’ instead.

What are the tools that you’re likely to draw on? What methodologies do you use? What kinds of coaching tools? These can be referred to as pillars or more simply ‘a toolkit’.

My client Katie Duckworth does a good job of this in the ‘how does it work’ section of her coaching packages. 

The point to remember here is that people will respond much more to the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of your work (the promise) than ‘how’ you’re going to do it (the package).

For example, if you had crippling headaches every night that stopped you from ever getting a good night’s sleep and the solution guaranteed to solve it was £1,000, you probably wouldn’t mind if that involved a pill, hypnosis or crystals in your bra. “Just take the pain away!” you’d cry.

The goals with ‘the package’ are:

• To make it clear how you work, so there aren’t any massive surprises when they start working with you.
• To show the robustness and rationale of your methods. 
• To show that you’ve done this loads and know what you’re doing!

And for bonus points you could create your own Intellectual Property- your own blend of coaching practices that you use.

Similar to my three Ps.

(I need to get on it and get them trademarked- I’ve seen competitors use it but they’re MINE, ALL MINE!)

Humans always buy based on emotion first and then seek to rationalise with logic.

The promise (messaging) is emotional. The package (methods) are rational. 

If you’re interested in the neuroscience behind buyer behaviour I can recommend Kenda Macdonald’s Hack The Buyer Brain and Dirty Little Secrets- Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it by Sharon Drew Morgen

The Price of a coaching offer

Pricing! 

**Evil cackle and rubs hands together.**

I love pricing conversations. 

If a client comes to me and is currently undercharging, it’s the easiest, quickest route to them earning more. 

Because price matters less to clients than it may appear.

But it matters a lot to you because if you’re working mainly one-to-one with clients, there are only so many clients you can stuff into a month!

Working with fewer clients and charging more makes for a better result for your clients, and a nicer life for you.

But charging what you perceive to be ‘a lot’ is challenging. 

Coaching is meant to be inclusive, isn’t it.

If only you could coach for free, get total engagement from your clients and still somehow magic up enough money to pay all your bills, save for retirement and have a nice couple of holidays every year!

Unfortunately that’s not how it works.

If you don’t charge enough, you’re not going to earn enough. 

And if clients don’t pay enough they’re not going to perceive your services as high quality and they might not take the process seriously.

I had a client when I was quite new to business. I was intimidated by her so, assuming she would judge me if I charged ‘too much’, I slashed my pricing for her. 

The result?

She missed half of our calls. She deferred to ‘her mentor’ on any decisions we discussed. And at the end of us working together, despite her telling me she had lightbulb moments on our calls together, she refused to give me a testimonial.. 

There were lots of additions to my ‘red flag’ client list after that experience, I can tell you! 

Anyway, practical advice for pricing…

Because pricing is such a sticky topic for coach-shaped-people, I’ve written quite a lot on this topic.

Here’s a list of blogs you can dip into:

• Why you shouldn’t charge your worth when pricing your coaching services (and what to do instead)
• How to price your coaching or consulting services (so you work less and earn more)
• The top 6 FAQs about charging more for your services.

I also have a fab resource called The 6 steps to charging more with 100% confidence workbook, which is a series of gentle exercises to help you get clear on the full value of what you do. Click here or on the graphic below to download it.

Why your coaching offer is the key to earning more

So, in answer to the question ‘Why your coaching offer is the key to earning more’, it’s because while setting up your offer you are forced to get clear on:

• Exactly who you want to work with
• How you’re helping them
• Why they should work with you
• And what to charge so that you are earning enough.

YES there are other factors to consider.

For instance, if you’re not earning enough because you don’t have enough clients, it might be that you need to do more selling or use differnt techniques.

But if you’re not able to clearly articulate how you can help people and make it obvious why they should work with you NOW, then selling more will only have a limited effect.

What about being visible and building an audience?

YES- people need to know how you are and ideally you’d be gathering your best fit clients onto an email list so you can nurture them and so that they’ll know how they can work with you when the time’s right.

But how do you get in front of more best fit clients if you’re still trying to appeal to all and sundry?

Oop! I got a bit ranty there didn’t I. I can’t help it. This is all quite personal. Which I’ll go into detail about now.

If you don’t want to read my personal story but you know you need some help with this, book a call with me here. 

My experiences with my own coaching-shaped-offers

I set my business up over 7 years ago now. I’d come from a marketing background. I worked in large service-based businesses and decided to go it alone once I’d had kids so I didn’t have to do the 2 ½ hour round trip into London.

I remember thinking that at least the marketing would be easy! 

Which is hilarious because I now realise that, when it comes to marketing and selling your own stuff, it’s multitudes more difficult. You’re simply too close to it and all the mindset monkeys come out to play when you’re trying to tell people that you’re good at something and can actually help them.

I remember trying to absorb as much info about social media and content marketing as I could. I was spending way more time consuming other people’s content than I was working on my own business! I should have probably caught that self-sabotaging behaviour a little earlier than I did…

Then I did a sales course.

It went heavy on the accountability and very light (nonexistent…?) on the clarification of what you were actually selling.

There were a couple of dozen other people on the programme and I could immediately tell who was going to do well and who wasn’t.

Some people were offering services that people obviously would want.

And some people’s offers made no sense at all.

Lo and behold, me and my crystal ball were right! 

The people with ‘no-brainer’ offers did amazingly well! And were subsequently used as testimonials for the marketing of the next round.

The people who didn’t do so well were, well, pretty much swept under the carpet. 

I remember a group call where one woman was selling something so obviously nonsense and explaining to the ‘coach’ that it just wasn’t shifting. 

The coach’s response?

Sell more. 

More posting. More emailing. More DMs. MORE!

I tried to personally reach out to share my observations with the woman with the rubbish offer but she assumed I was just trying to sell her something and said no. 😂

And so I realised the thing that had been lying there under my nose all along- the power of a good offer.

Going into that sales course, I’ll admit, my offer was pants!

I was trying to sell what I knew people needed but it’s not at all what they wanted. 

I managed to get a few sales purely on the fact that I was very visible on LinkedIn and I was very persistent.

It was exhausting!

But worth it.

Because that was the start of the journey back to what I knew.

Ironically, my last role in corporate was Senior Propositions Manager.

In other words; offers! 

I knew all this inside out and back to front but the knowledge had been squeezed out of my brain while I was setting up my business and getting caught up with all the jazzy digital marketing hoo-haa.

Skipping to the end- I finally started applying my knowledge to my own business.

I got clear on who I wanted to work with. Why they’d want to work with me. And what they were seeking the solutions to. 

I put my first offer out there and the rest is history!

Indications that your coaching offer needs attention

I get it – you probably already have one or more coaching offers.

And perhaps you feel like it’s already on brand for you and you appear to be attracting some really fab clients.

So how do you tell if your coaching offer needs work or not?

Here’s a handy list to check against.

If you find that:

• It’s tricky to be concise when asked ‘what do you do’
• Content creation is hard
• You’re not attracting enough clients
• You’re not attracting enough of the right clients
• Nobody ever says ‘I read your sales page/ social media post/ email and it was as if you were reading my mind’.
• If you’re selling blocks of coaching calls rather than offering some sort of outcome.
• The referrals that get passed to you are a bit hit and miss as to whether they’re ideal clients for you or not

Then The Freedom Giver will likely help you sort your offer out and get all those points back on track. Have a look here for more information and to apply.