If you want to scale your coaching business, at some point you have to sell something that isn't an hour of your time. But when you decide on the transformation you've spent years getting good at, it doesn't sell. I've spent 17 years as a college educator and an instructional designer developing outcomes and transformations for groups of people before any of them show up. And a group is a group, whether it's in a classroom or a coaching program. You have to name what everybody walks out with before a single person walks in. So in this episode, I'm going to walk you through three things. Number one, why the transformation you're proudest of is probably the one you can't sell. Number two, what your client has to hear instead. And number three, how to find the right transformation to package in the first place. The transformation you are proudest of is probably the one you cannot sell. Let me explain why this is usually the wrong transformation to pick. Most coaching is a series of transformations. Your client is at one place, they want to get the transformation you've promised them, and you're the one who gets them there. Along that path, there are many small transformations or small wins. And if you work with somebody for a year or more, you have most likely made a huge transformation with that client, and it got built out of all of those small wins. When you go to package something up and sell it for a program, the big transformation is what you reach for because that's the one you're proudest of. And that's the one that's going to sit there and not sell. So let's look at an example of how this plays out. Imagine that you are an organization coach and you help people get their lives, their houses, and all their affairs in order. You sit down and you think, my program is going to be a whole life overhaul for this person. You're going to organize everything in their house from top to bottom. You're going to create an inventory system so they know where all their stuff is. You're going to create a grocery order system so that they always know what they need to get on the next grocery trip. And the same goes for the consumables and all the things you're constantly needing to order for a house. And then you're going to give them the processes that make sure that once they get everything organized, it stays organized and it doesn't just slowly devolve back into chaos. But the problem is that's too big. Because when you work one-on-one, someone is getting small wins along the way and they want to keep working with you because of those wins. You probably didn't sit down with your client and go, okay, it's going to take a year for you to get where you want to be. You might have some people do that, but for the most part, people want quick wins. They don't want to hear that it's going to take a year or more to accomplish whatever the transformation is. A year typically scares most clients away. That whole life version is what they would get working with you one-on-one coaching, and it takes a long time. You need to zoom in and find subsets of small wins to package. A live course could be one very narrow specific transformation, something like cleaning out that junk drawer in your kitchen and making sure it stays that way. A group program could be a subset of those transformations, something like cleaning and organizing all the catch-all places in your home, like closets, drawers, and cupboards. You need to find those small wins and transformations and organize them. And you have to organize them in such a way that your client gets the transformation you're promising them in the amount of time you've also advertised. The real work is picking which subset you're going to package. And picking is only half of it because you can pick the right one and still describe it in a way that doesn't resonate with your client. Because clear to you and clear to your client are two different things. You need to be clear on what the transformation is, and you need to be clear in a manner that your client actually understands. That means describing the final transformation in your client's own words and not in coach speak. And it needs to be clear enough that if you told two different people what you do, they would both picture the same outcome. I'm working on this exact issue right now with a coach. She sent me her outline, and the intro to her program was written in the vocabulary that she would use talking to another coach in her field. The words she was using were not the words her clients use. So I told her, you need to tell the people taking this program specifically what the outcomes are going to be in terms they would use. Don't use the professional terms. Use the words a regular non-coach person would say to their friend. Something like, hey, I'm getting help with organizing my house, and when I'm done, it's going to stay that way. No jargon and no coach speak. And I am guilty of this too. The other day I used the term instructional design and I could see the glazed expression on my client's face. When a client reads your professional language and doesn't recognize it, it makes them feel like they're already behind before they even start. Now let's have you play the part of our organization coach. You go out and you tell people, I will help you get organized. And I start thinking, well, what kind of organized are you talking about? Organize my house, organize the files on my computer, organize my life. Ooh, wouldn't that be nice? Someone comes and helps me organize my entire life. I could use that. Hey, if you're an organization coach, I will help you build a group program free of charge if you can help me get my life in order. Be warned, helping me get my life organized is a big challenge. Anyway, back to our example. I will help you get organized is too generic. And if that's how you describe your service, clients can just go look it up on the internet. Why would they pay you to help them? Now, let's say instead your statement is, I will help you get organized with my five-step joyful decluttering process. That's better because now you're setting yourself apart. You have a method with a name on it, and it does indicate that we're going to do something with getting rid of clutter, but it still doesn't clearly state what the client is getting. However, if you say, I will help you get your house organized with my five-step joyful decluttering process, now it's specific and it differentiates you because now you have a process that you're using and the client knows what they're walking away with. When you can't specifically say what somebody is going to get from the transformation you offer, one of two things happen. Either nobody signs up because it isn't clear what they're getting, or the wrong people sign up because the transformation sounds generic enough that it feels like it fits just about anybody. And now you've got a program full of a wide variety of people who are not your ideal clients. Even worse, they're all starting from completely different places, which makes your job harder. And getting the words right, how you describe it to your clients, is only half of it. Say you promise one thing in your marketing, and I'm using marketing as a catch-all here. It could be a sales page or on a discovery call or even a social media post. Whatever you advertise, the client signs up for that transformation. Then they get into the thing and it feels different than what they were expecting, or they're hearing different things than they expected to hear. That client is going to feel one of three things. One, they got conned. Two, they signed up for the wrong thing, or three, they're already behind. They're not going to feel aligned with the process. And that client is far more likely to quit. When you're one-on-one, you can adjust on the fly. When you're designing a course or a group program, you can't. So your marketing material and all the material inside your program has to align 100%, or you're going to get clients who feel like they aren't getting what they paid for. Here's an example with you playing our organization coach again. You sold somebody on how to get organized. Then the first thing they get when they get into your program is let's talk about the mindset you need. And you spend a whole week on mindset and the client does zero organizing. Your client is going to feel really frustrated about their progress. And I'm not saying mindset isn't important because it is. There are ways you can work that into the first week while still helping your clients feel like they made progress. But when you sign somebody up, they are gung-ho about it and they've got momentum. The last thing you want to do is spend a week talking about things that don't feel like progress towards the outcome you promised them. So you have to pick the transformation and you have to name it in words your client would use, and then you have to keep delivering on that same thing from day one. Which brings us back to the question I left you with earlier. Out of everything you do, how do you actually find the right transformation to package? Let me walk you through how to figure it out. Now, this is what it would look like if I went through it with you. It may sound simple when I lay it out like this, but it is a lot easier when you've got somebody sitting there helping you work through it. I'll sit down with you and we talk about your process. We discuss who your ideal clients are, where those clients are starting from, and what is the ultimate transformation you give. Then we start pulling out the important bit. What is the one thing almost all your clients come in needing to do before they can make real progress? Maybe it's a question they keep asking you over and over. Maybe it's a mental block they're having. Whatever it is, we pull that out. And that's the thing we turn into your first live course. Think about our organization coach again. Before anybody organizes a single drawer, they have to be able to decide what stays and what goes. Every client comes in stuck on that. That's the prerequisite, and it's a mental block that must be cleared before any of the rest of your process works. And I have to be honest here, I picked this as an example, and it's something I struggle with, the whole what to throw away and what to keep thing, because I'm a bit of a pack rat. I still have random screws and bolts in my garage from over a decade ago that I have no idea where they came from. I blame my grandfather for that personality trait, so I would definitely need this course before I could get organized. But I digress. That first course does a lot of stuff for you. It gives you an easy starting point because you've done that thing so many times, you know it front and back, and you already know it's something all your clients need. You are not inventing anything. You're pulling out something that you've already delivered many times. There's also a big upside to doing this as the first piece of your group program. Somebody goes through that course, and when they're done, they're a better client to go into one-on-one work with you or future programs. Because now they're further along in your process. So the thing you built to serve people in a group is also feeding the one-on-one work you're already doing. And later it feeds into the next step of your group program. So that's how you find it. You look at where your clients are starting from, you find the one thing they all need to do before they can make progress, and you name that in words they would use. That's the first transformation for you to package. Now, the part I can't do from a podcast is help you find the right starting point. You can absolutely do this on your own, but it's a lot easier when you've got somebody helping you work through it. And that's exactly what the program Blueprint Intensive is for. Here's how it works. We get on a call and we go through everything I just walked you through together for your specific process. Then within 48 hours, I send you a full outline of your group program plus a detailed outline of the first course you can start building right away. It's $97 and you can find it at CurtissSatterfield.com forward slash blueprint. And if you're not sure a program is even right for you, I've got a quick quiz you can take. Go to CurtisSatterfield.com forward slash quiz. You've been listening to Program Design for Coaches. I'm Dr. Curtis Satterfield, and if nobody's told you lately, you've got what it takes to build your program. I'll talk to you in the next one.