Listen up, entrepreneurs: the act of imparting your wisdom is incredibly valuable! You’ve spent years accumulating knowledge and experience, and your clients come to you for the specific expertise knocking around in your noggin.
So when it’s time to create a top-tier coaching program, outsourcing the creation of some of those components may feel risky, but I guarantee it’ll save you an enormous amount of time AND bring another perspective into the mix, which is always helpful. (Tunnel-vision can be a dangerous thing.)
Your coaching program should be accessible and available to your clients no matter where they are in the world, via phone or laptop.
It must be designed with mobility and tiny phone screens in mind. (More on that later.)
And, of course, it needs to be easy to navigate and understand, both in terms of information intake and in the way you’ve put it together.
Creating a workflow for designing your coaching program will help you see where a virtual assistant or other key members of your team can help get this big-ticket offering up and running!
Why Outsource Some of Your Coaching Program Work?
The downloadable offerings you’ll use with your mentees—documents, videos, workbooks, master classes, and contracts—should be automated, prepared ahead of time, and (ideally) created to serve several purposes.
A long shelf-life is also critical, since you’ll want to run this program over the long-term. The same applies to your coaching-specific marketing materials.
This is perfect work to outsource to someone with sharp writing and editing skills!
Those downloadable items will be supplemented with real-time tools, like coaching calls, video chats, and a Facebook group. While the core of these 1:1 activities aren’t exactly prime for automation or pre-prep, related tasks (like scheduling and FB monitoring) are perfect for a virtual assistant.
In essence, your assistant will help create the foundation on which you’ll build your coaching program.
While you are doing the actual mentoring, your VA will keep the behind-the-scenes activities necessary for your 1:1 activities running smoothly.
Online coaching programs generally range from 60-90 days, and if you’re selling enough of them, you’ll have a steady stream of clients.
Most entrepreneurs structure each session to accommodate 5-10 clients at a time, but all of those mentees will expect personalized attention!
Outsourcing the automated prep work AND the scheduling and management of some 1:1 activities will be critical to a smooth operation, and help keep the revenue flowing.
5 Outsourcing Areas That Will Save You Time and Make Money
The mentoring itself will fall to you, of course; group calls and videos need to be hosted by none other than your gorgeous self.
But the entire coaching program has plenty of other elements that your virtual assistant can handle.
1) Marketing your coaching program
Marketing is very much about communication, and successful entrepreneurs know that outsourced writing work is gold! A talented VA or freelancer can produce ads and social media copy, newsletters and blog posts that help sell your coaching program.
Your expert, final edits will create lasting pieces that can be used again and again, but outsourcing those first drafts will save you an enormous amount of time.
You can also assign your VA the task of helping to plan the marketing strategy:
- What is she seeing in the social media arena that offers especially valuable exposure?
- What about print media?
- Is your VA watching for events—conventions, conferences, workshops—where marketing your coaching program makes sense?
Finally, ask your VA to track and monitor your marketing efforts. Her sharp eye can help you see what is working best, and decide what to focus on in future campaigns.
2) Client vetting & sales system process
In selling this premium offer—where client interaction is key and their expectations will be high—the “sell” process needs to sit on a super solid foundation.
- What are you offering in this coaching program?
- How will it benefit your client?
- Do they really understand your philosophy, your commitment?
- Will they be willing to invest in this coaching?
Give your virtual assistant a simple rubric, and she can perform some interviews of various applicants to weed out the least promising candidates.
You want mentees who are committed to doing the work, and also likely to benefit from it so they’ll be happy with their experience (and talk you up to other potential mentees!)
Your sales materials can also help you attract the right mentees and deter wrong-fit clients from applying. Designing a compelling sales funnel for your coaching program is dependent on:
- a clear messaging strategy
- keeping it fresh and timely in terms of design/appeal
- examining the entire program up close, as well as from a “bird’s eye” view
- being aware of competing offers
- tracking leads and investigating failed follow-throughs
- a clear system for processing and finalizing sales
These are all tasks that a VA can take on, with clear direction from you.
3) Onboarding coaching clients and welcoming them into the program
Coaching clients will have a million questions, and they all deserve answers!
Your onboarding process is important in so many ways: you’ll quell concerns or skepticism, if they exist; you’ll help the client feel confident in tackling this learning experience; and most importantly, you’ll assure them you’re there to offer support, answers, and help in whatever ways they need it.
Creating an effective welcome message and designing documents or blogs with easy-to-find information is key.
As you and your virtual assistant create onboarding materials, keep ease-of-use and simple navigation in mind, especially when it comes to smartphone viewers.
Many clients will be using their phones throughout the coaching program, so your VA can be in charge of interface and navigation testing to ensure their experience is seamless.
Outline for your VA what each component (web page, contract, FAQ, etc.) should accomplish, precisely what info needs to be present, and the tone you want it to have. Once she has drafts ready, you can polish them to a gleaming finish.
A client’s first steps into your coaching world will leave a lasting impression. Make it a good one!
4) Calendar management
We all know that our calendars keep us afloat and moving forward, which means they’ll be instrumental in keeping a coaching program on track.
A highly interactive offering like this takes a lot of energy and time from other projects, so it must be run as efficiently as possible.
You’ll be grateful for an organized, detail-oriented virtual assistant who can manage the scheduling of things such as:
- Course work and time frames
- Voxer or other tool-training at the starting gate
- FB group monitoring and communications
- Group or video chats
- Communications regarding “what’s next”
- Support work
- Bonus offerings
A well-run coaching schedule won’t just keep things moving along, it also provides a great way to see the whole program in action, and plan ahead for tight squeezes.
5) Creating process and systems documentation
Before you throw open the doors to your fantastic coaching program, you need a plan that you can duplicate.
Hopefully you’ve already created some kind of structural path for the program, but you also need a strategy for documentation.
Lay out the “bones” of the package by creating a list that outlines the pieces that need to be created: introductory blog post, sales and marketing docs, FAQ, onboarding docs, goals of the program, a handbook, course documents, the software and tools that will be used, etc.
Each of those pieces should be assigned to a phase of the program (welcome, phase I, “graduation,” etc.).
If the project is large enough and your budget allows, assign documentation of each phase to a team member. Otherwise, decide which areas you can outsource to at least one VA.
You’re the final editor, of course, and once you pull it all together, you’ll have all the pieces ready to put in place.
You can also assign your VA the task of keeping an eye out for new software and tools that your mentees can use on a regular basis, and maintaining a review schedule for all the pre-prepped written pieces and contracts.
Being responsive, organized, and knowledgeable is the name of the game when it comes to running a successful coaching program.
Your talented team members will help ensure that your clients graduate with an “A+” rating in mind!
Want to create a fun, easy, and profitable 1:1 coaching program that you can run from your phone? Click Here to Grab the Plan & Templates to get started now!
