3 Big Shifts Happening in the Online Coaching Industry

Kathryn Thompson: [00:00:00] After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host Katherine Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you are ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen her and a sought after entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you are in the right place.

Be The Sought After Entrepreneur podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter one size fits all approach to marketing, and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients when you do this. You can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life.

Welcome to Be the Sought After Entrepreneur podcast, and here's your host, Katherine Thompson. Hey. Hey, super stoked that you're tuning into this week's episode. I cannot wait to dive in today's [00:01:00] topic because I'm gonna be sharing with you three really big shifts that I see happening in the online coaching and consulting industry that are impacting the way that you are marketing and selling your services.

So if you're a coach or consultant and you have an online business and you sell predominantly online, whether you're selling, you know, one-to-one coaching packages, or you're selling done for you services, or you've got a passive offer that you sell, this is gonna be of relevance for you because it's something that I've felt for the last year and we're.

Seeing this big shift happening for sure in the industry, and if you felt like what you used to do maybe isn't no longer working, then this is gonna be applicable because you're probably gonna see some resonance within these three shifts that I'm gonna share with you today. And the first one is, Personalization, and if you are doing one-to-one, you're gonna be like cheering, going, yay.

This is what I [00:02:00] do. I work predominantly with one-to-one people. But if you are doing group coaching programs or you're offering a passive offer to some degree, then this is gonna be applicable to you because what we're seeing in the industry right now is that people are craving personalization and customization.

And this often happens when we see a flood of people hit the market, which we have in the coaching industry. This industry has totally boomed over the last five years, and we're seeing more and more people come to it as a way to start and run their own business. And so what ends up happening is we see what we call market saturation.

And what ends up happening in market saturation is, is that the consumer. Becomes very sophisticated and their buying behaviors change. But what we're also really seeing is, is that. We saw a lot of coaches hit the market and sell offers with the [00:03:00] notion that they wanted to scale, right? How do I create an offer I can scale?

How can I work less and make more money? Has been the rhetoric in the coaching space for five or more years now. And so a lot of programs were created in what I call cookie cutter ways where you create this program that's done in a cookie cutter way, follow these steps and you will be successful. We saw a lot of those products hit the market and they were done because the business owner wanted to scale.

And what ended up happening is a lot of people go through those customers, consumers go through them, and they don't see the results that were. Let's just say promised, if you take this course and if you follow these steps step by step, you will see massive success in your business. I created this success.

Therefore, if you follow these steps, you will create this success too, and as we know, Everybody's different. Everybody's business is different. The way they learn is different. The way they look at the world is [00:04:00] different. Everything is different. Industries are different. Niches are different. All of that is different.

And so we're seeing a lot of consumers that have invested and have invested maybe a lot of money into programs or mentorship and haven't necessarily seen the results for. A variety of reasons. Some exactly may have, you know, life came up or they actually never applied it. And those do play a factor, absolutely.

But, We are seeing a massive, massive, massive craving for customization and personalization. Ditching the cookie cutter one size fits all, and having a coach or a mentor that can look at them and create a custom plan and an align plan. For them. And that is huge. Now, you might be thinking, but Catherine, you can't scale that.

You can only scale that to a certain degree. And that is another big shift I'm seeing happening in the [00:05:00] industry. And that is combined with this one not part of the other two that I'm gonna share with you is very much combined with this one is this whole notion of scaling, right? It's kind of an overarching one, if I'm gonna be honest, is that.

We're seeing people want this customization and personalization. We're also seeing the benefits of that and as a business owner, You have to ask yourself, am I doing this to scale, to create massive wealth for myself and, and that's all I'm really caring about. Or could I scale a personalized program or one-to-one services to multiple six figures and be completely content with that, or am I striving for.

Multiple millions, and therefore I'm gonna create an offer that allows me to do that, but sacrifice on that. Customization and personalization. Those are totally up to you. But what I would love to invite you to consider is, [00:06:00] which is one of the other things I'm seeing a big shift in, is that if you have offers that allow customization and personalization within your offerings, it doesn't mean you can't offer something else that you could also then scale.

On mass, like your passive offer. For example, if you are selling group coaching right now, that's kind of the cookie cutter, one size fits all, or you're selling a passive offer to some degree that you are scaling, you could offer some other personalization that allows you to maybe add that onto your group coaching program if somebody wants that as an additional, right.

Here's the. Base package, and then here's this V I P offering. Right? There are ways that you can integrate this customization and personalization into what you're doing while still scaling. Really, really important. The big thing is, is you've just gotta get innovative, right? You've just gotta think outside of the box from the, again, the cookie cutter, one size fits all.

Or this notion [00:07:00] that we have to sell one big offer, and that's the thing that you scale, right? Which is another big shift I see happening is, is that we're moving away from this business model of one signature offer. It's great to have a signature offer, and it's great to have that one offer when you're first starting out.

To sort of build the foundation, because this is where I see a lot of people go sideways, is that they hit the market, they're this new business owner and they're like, I've got 10 offerings, and I think if I have 10 offerings, then that will allow me to really scale. When I love to peel back the layers and go, okay, let's just start with one offer.

Let's lay the foundation. Let's build the systems that need to be built in order to scale, grow, and scale. And then let's get that mastery down pack and then start to add on all these other offerings. And one of the things I often see inside spellbound when I'm working with my clients, I, they're multifaceted, multi-passionate, and spellbound is something that is totally customizable to each person.

And I'm [00:08:00] often hearing, you know, I finally feel fully seen and fully heard. And this goes back to that customization piece, right? And how important it is because again, lots of people have seen themselves go into these programs where what they desired and what they truly wanted maybe wasn't received or wasn't seen or anything like that.

And so, I have a lot of people that come into spell BA one craving personalization, which is what it does. But then they also look at me and they go, Catherine, do I have to just sell one big offer? Am I here just to kind of articulate the value of that? And I'm like, no, we want to show all facets of who you are.

And if you want to have multiple offerings, we absolutely wanna entertain that, but we wanna look at how those offerings sort of fit. And so that's the second big piece is that we're seeing a big move away from this, like one signature offer and even the Ascension model, right? The ascension model was taught, which is, which is very much grounded in, [00:09:00] uh, network marketing, right?

It's like, How to keep people just moving up this ladder with you, and we're seeing that sort of go by the wayside as well. We're seeing people really shift into, I have this core offer that I'm known for, but now how can I offer complimentary? Products and services that aren't necessarily what I call the ascension.

Like, I'm gonna offer you this step-by-step in the first signature offer, and then you're going to need the next thing up for me. You're gonna need the next level up for me in order to con continue to grow. And that isn't. That's where we're seeing a shift happening. We're seeing people create offerings that are really potent and powerful and stand on their own, but also really compliment the product suite that is available to them.

And so we're seeing that shift away from that. So if you're somebody who's like, I'm a multi compassion and I wanna offer a bunch of different things, then you're gonna love this because people are [00:10:00] looking for these complimentary offerings, but not necessarily. An offering that needs to be purchased, and then a next step up needs to be purchased, and then a next step up needs to be purchased.

Right? We're moving very much away from that, what I call the Ascension model, and back to more of that complimentary offering, similarly to a brick and mortar product-based service, right? If you're walking into a store, for us, for example, was wine. We made wine. For people. That was our primary offering.

But then we started to, you know, branch out and we started to bring in wine accessories. We started to dabble maybe in the beer a bit, right? We started to bring in a bunch of different things that complimented what we were already doing, but it wasn't what drew people into our business in a lot of ways, right?

People did come and shop. For Christmas gifts and stuff like that, but it was like, what can we add as a compliment to what we're already offering that people then would [00:11:00] purchase when they were in the store? You can think of your online coaching and consulting business the exact same way, right? For example, in Spellbound, I work with people on a very one-to-one bespoke custom way to create a marketing and sales strategy that's custom to them.

And then how do we communicate? What you need to communicate to move people down, that customer buying journey, and that's what I work with them on. Very bespokely within that, and it's totally an implementation hub. So I'm working with them to take action and to implement and to stay less in learning mode, right?

So it's not this like full curriculum where you're learning and then trying to apply. It's very much learning as you go and really leaning into your own intuition and your own guidance and what you truly want. And amplifying that is whi, which is what Spellbound is. In saying that I could have complimentary offerings like.

How to write a sales page or how to write an email [00:12:00] sequence or, you know, I could break out parts of this that would be complimentary so that if somebody was coming into spellbound, you know, they would, they would get the full bang, right? But if somebody was like, I just want some of these other pieces that maybe I'm already missing, like maybe I've got my business just rocking and I'm needing some, you know, other lessons or training in some of the other areas that Catherine's an expert in.

Here, you know, there's some other offerings that are a compliment, and so we're seeing that shift happening, right? People want the complimentary products, but they're not wanting to necessarily buy into an offer that's gonna make them, lock them into that offer. But then it's like these tiered approaches where you're having then to go, okay, well now I've gotta move up.

Now I've gotta move up and now I've gotta move up, right? It's like I hear this so often from people's, like, I took this program and I'm still stuck, and so. What is, how do I know that if I invest in, let's just say spellbound or another offering or [00:13:00] program, that I'm not gonna stay stuck? Like I feel like when I invested in that program, the thing was to get me beyond where I am right now, but I'm not.

And I've applied the things. I've done the things. Um, and I do wanna preface that business is like a ladder in a lot of ways, right? You know, you launch, right? So there's the ideation stage. You come up with your idea. You launch and then you have to grow, right? So you've gotta build that audience and that customer base.

You've gotta grow. So there's this growth stage, and then there's the scaling stage. Once you've got everything in line, right? You've got consistent clients coming into your world and inquirers coming into your world. You've got consistent people buying from you. And now it's like, how do I scale this?

Right? And a beautiful way to do that, like I said, is with complimentary offerings, but the idea would be is to get that one. Thing down, right? Get that foundation built on your primary offering, why you went into business in the first place, and then have that big vision of like, okay, what else can I offer?

Is a beautiful way [00:14:00] to go. So we are seeing that shift away from the one signature offer scale to a million with just one thing. We're seeing people really lean into their multi-faceted, multi-passionate ways, and that's just a beautiful place to be. And then the third big shift that I'm seeing in the online coaching and consulting space is the whole notion between high ticket and low ticket.

And again, when the market becomes saturated and we see a lot of like. Coaches hit the market, and there's a lot more coaches for audiences to choose from. We see these tactics that pop up that allow us to scale, but it's kind of like a bandaid, as I call it, right? And that's what I see as the high ticket versus the low ticket.

I see a lot of coaches that moved and gravitated to the high ticket model so that they could make more, but have to sell less. Right. So you're selling less, [00:15:00] but you're making more money. But did your offering actually warrant a high ticket price tag? Right. We don't see. You know, Audi or Jaguar going, oh, I started selling my cars for X value, but now I wanna sell more of them, but it, you know, I wanna, I wanna make more, but not have to sell more, and so I'm just gonna increase my price.

No, they hit the market as a luxury car brand, right? Similar to Gucci or Louis Vuitton. They claimed their space in the luxury market and they priced accordingly. We don't see that. In the coaching industry because it's so dysregulated, right? So we see this notion of like, well, I want to make more, but I don't want to necessarily have to sell more, so I'm just gonna increase my price.

And that made the high ticket versus the low ticket, very dysregulated, but also had a [00:16:00] lot of people hitting the market with a bunch of high ticket offerings that did not. Warrant it or did not match that luxury market that they were selling to. Right. For example, If you are a business coach, let's just use me as an example.

I support people in articulating the value of what they do. I'm a marketing expert and a conversion copywriting, and that's what Spellbound does, right? It helps people create a high converting funnel with high converting content and copy. That's what we do. We build out that customer journey, whatever that customer journey looks like for each individual person, and then we create really powerful and potent content that moves people down to that offer.

And obviously then they sell what they sell, right? Now if I'm selling to a new coaching consultant and I'm pricing my offer at 50 K or 30 K or 20 K or 15 K or [00:17:00] 10 K, I've already out-priced myself because PE new coaches that are entering the market, Are new, they're not really making a ton of money, and so they need to be able to learn and grow and scale and invest at a price point that allows them to see a return on investment and not a return on investment in 10 years from now, or five years from now, or even two years from now.

Right. So. That is something that you want to consider is like, where are you in the market and who are you ultimately selling to, because that dictates price point, right? Whereas in the coaching industry, it was like, we just wanna sell high ticket so that we can make more, but sell less, right? We don't wanna do the low ticket game because, We might not get the quality of clients that, you know, a high ticket client would be.

There was this whole dichotomy of like, well, if I sell high ticket, I will have higher quality clients. If I sell high ticket, I will make more and have to sell [00:18:00] less and work less, hopefully. Right? And that is not, in my opinion, pricing and integrity or ethical pricing. That to me is pricing to avoid. The things that you don't want or it's pricing to capitalize on.

The fact that you're gonna get people to invest in your offer and the benefit to you is I can scale quicker, faster, whatnot. Again, we go back to this whole overarching scaling piece here, right? Looking at what do I have to offer? What is the price point and who am I selling to, and do they have the capacity to pay depending on where they're at in their life?

And this might look very different if you're, if you're selling to consumers, right? What's their ability to pay, but also what is the ROI to them? And ROI does not have to be just monetary. Return on investment does not have to be [00:19:00] monetary, but it has to be something that they see a return on, right? Or that they see the value of that return on.

So I'm seeing a big shift away from. The high ticket model is the best model. Um, and more of a shift back to sort of evening out the industry where people are pricing things accordingly to where they fit within the market. Are they a luxury brand and do they have a luxury offering? And if they have a luxury offering, are they living up to that delivery and that standard of what they consider luxury?

Because again, in a dysregulated market, which the coaching industry is, is that pricing can go wonky and all over the place. And we're seeing that, right? We're seeing coaches charge very, very high ticket, these 60 K hundred K 40 K offerings, and at the end of the day it's like, but what am I actually getting from that?

You know? Um, I was recently talking to [00:20:00] somebody and there was a woman who was pricing. You know, 50 K for Voxer support. And at the end of the day I'm like, price what you want. And if you feel confident doing that, great. But at the end of the day, I'm like, really? You know, what is the return on investment?

And what, and what do people see as a result in that? Because to me, I. You could invest 50 K in, in growing and scaling your team, right? So I also want you to think about that from a consumer perspective as well when you're looking to invest and, and looking to invest to grow and scale your business. Like most businesses scale with team.

And we've seen this really wonky thing happening in the coaching space where it's like, invest this high ticket in my high ticket offering 30, 40, 50, 60, a hundred K. Invest in me and I'll help you scale. You could literally. Scale with team, you could pay [00:21:00] $60,000 to some really amazing team members that will help you scale as well.

And so you've gotta sort of look at that when it comes to scaling, which brings me back to this whole low ticket, high ticket battle, right? You could have really amazing clients who buy low ticket. I don't know where the messaging came that. Because you invested in high ticket, you were there for classified as a better client or a higher quality client compared to a lower ticket client, like I'm priced spellbound is, you know, under 10 K and it's a steal of a fricking deal.

To be honest with you. It's so, so worth the value. And I have the best fricking clients. You know what I mean? And so in that old rhetoric of high ticket, right, high ticket being, you know, 5K could be considered high ticket, but I'm looking at the 10 K, the 15 K, the 20 K offerings, right? That pocket there that the industry shifted to big time.

We saw offerings, everything above 10 K that, [00:22:00] you know, classified. As those that are investing are higher quality, more committed, more motivated, and we just can't actually pinpoint that. There's no research that actually allows us to make those claims, which, you know, I mean is a whole other episode on the integrity of messaging and marketing and what we use to market and how we use to market.

Um, You know, money and success and results and all of that, which is something that I want to talk about on our next episode around the ethics of marketing and integrity in marketing and the messages that I see sort of crumbling around in the. In the online coaching and consulting space. So it's gonna be building off this episode.

I'm talking here about obviously the shifts that I'm seeing, big shifts in the market, which I'll just quickly sum up for you. So the very first one was customization and personalization, right? Where can you integrate that into what you're doing? And if you have an offer that [00:23:00] is scaling, you know, a group coaching program or a one, um, passive offer, And you're kind of like, but I don't know where to integrate this.

Think outside the box of where maybe you can integrate it and where you can cultivate this within your business. Because like I said, People are wanting this for themselves. Whether, whether you're a business coach or a marketing coach, or you're a health coach, or you're a holistic practitioner, right?

People want this and I think, again, if you're a soulful coach, you've probably seen this, right? It's kind of like, I could never really sum up in words how I help people, cuz everybody's different. This is what we're seeing. We're seeing the shift. People taking that, you know, self leadership. Back and that power back going, I am an individual and this is how I'm different and I want to be seen and heard that way.

So that was number one, was that whole customization and personalization. And number two very much builds off of number one, in that we are different and that we can lean into our [00:24:00] multifaceted and our multipurpose ways and bring that into our business. We are seeing that shift away from the rhetoric that you have to have one signature offer and moving more to a model of having complimentary offers.

Ones that can stand on their own, but also ones that work very beautifully together. And then number three is this whole battle between high ticket and low ticket, and which one's better and which one is better to scale. The question isn't which one is better to scale. The, the question is, what am I offering and where does it fit in the market?

Is it the Jaguar in the market or is it the Walmart and the Walmart's? Totally okay. And so is the Jaguar. There isn't a better or worse, and it doesn't guarantee that you're gonna have better quality clients if you're the Walmart versus the Jag or the Jag versus the Walmart. So we've gotta get this out of our heads, right?

We've gotta price accordingly to what it is that we're offering. The value of what that is, and then who are we [00:25:00] offering that to? And do they have the availability to pay? Right? So if you're offering something to somebody that doesn't have the availability to pay 20 K, you're not a gonna be able to probably sell to them.

But if you do sell to them, There is this big huge risk that you're asking people to go into debt or to take out loans to be able to invest, which to me plays into this whole integrity piece in marketing and sales, which we're gonna talk about on the next episode. So be sure to tune into that episode when it drops next week, cuz I'm gonna be literally peeling back the layers on the ethics and integrity of marketing and sales and how I believe.

We've done a lot of things backwards, um, that have impacted the coaching industry and why we're seeing this huge shift in consumer behavior and buying because we've created it, right? We as sellers have created it. We've created this skepticism. We've created this, um, You know these big shifts that are [00:26:00] happening, and we've created big, huge questions around the whole coaching industry in general, and so you're gonna wanna tune into this episode when it drops next week.

Cheers. Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at creatively owned and online@creativelyowned.com. Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.