086: Private Coaching vs Group Coaching

If you’re an online coach, should you focus on one-on-one coaching first or a scalable group coaching program?

There is a lot of conflicting advice on how to start your online coaching business and it can be overwhelming and confusing to try to figure out what you should focus on.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The difference between individual coaching and a group coaching program
• The pros and cons of running a group coaching program
• The pros and cons of offering 1:1 coaching
• Whether you should start with private coaching or group coaching first
• How focusing on only one offer will simplify your business and make sales easier in the future
• The importance of mastering and refining your expertise now
• How you can eventually transition from one offer to the other

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, welcome back to this episode of the podcast. I am really looking forward to this topic because we are digging into the idea of whether you should focus on private coaching or group coaching first. And this is kind of a juicy topic because I think this is one of the things that there's a lot of conflicting. information on. There's a lot of conflicting Instagram posts and podcast episodes and YouTube videos and experts out there telling you one is better than the other. Maybe you're an online coach sitting there trying to do both at the same time, or kind of stuck in analysis paralysis. Wherever you're at, even if you're already coaching in one of these containers, the stuff we're going to talk about in this is very foundational and may help you make a choice in your business that is not only going to simplify your life, but also save you time and ultimately simplifying your, your business in a way where you can kind of take that deep breath and say, this is what I'm focused on. Put the blinders on and not feel this shiny object syndrome constantly where you feel like you should be doing something else. So wherever you're at, I feel like you're going to get some really great value of this episode. And if you are an online coach in particular, who's trying to make this choice, or you find yourself kind of like spiraling in indecision. you're really going to want to take action after this episode. It's going to be great. So let's, let's clarify the difference between group coaching and private coaching so that we can dig into some of the pros and cons of each of these and ultimately what I recommend you and what I recommend to all of my clients in terms of what to focus on. First, because I do think you should pick one to focus on first. So when I'm talking about group coaching, this usually looks like memberships or like a mid ticket group coaching program. And it can also include things like masterminds. When I'm talking about private coaching, I'm talking about actual one on one coaching sessions, whether these are, you know, video calls or maybe asynchronous coaching, I really am talking as well. To. More of like signature private coaching where it's like a couple of months, three months, six months. Of course, there are other types of private coaching, like intensives and VIP days. So absolutely those could apply here as well. But the lens that I'm speaking through is, is about, you know, like three to six months of one on one coaching sessions where you're going really deep with one client and you're working with individual clients. Okay. So let's talk about some of the pros and cons of group coaching. First. Because I think group coaching gets a lot of positive hype because of this word, scalable. Um, group coaching is absolutely tossed around as the idea that this is the most scalable way to coach. We assume scalability is what we should be striving for right out of the gate. And if it's not scalable, it's not worth doing at all. Group coaching also is very appealing because you can support more clients at one time. You could potentially price it more excessively than private coaching. And again, we, we assume a scalable offer where you can work with more people and you know, an indefinite amount of people without it increasing how much time you're spending on the program. We assume that that is better. And if it's better, we should start there. There are some. Really significant cons to group coaching, however, group coaching does require some launching, whether you launch it once and the doors are open and you're perpetually filling it, or you're like periodically launching it and doing launch events. It does require. Um, actual launching and promotions because it is like a group offer and requires larger amounts of leads and ultimately group coaching programs, whether it's an affordable membership or a high ticket mastermind are going to be harder for you to sell. If you don't have solid expertise and credentials and testimonials and client results. And another thing that people often underestimate is group coaching is actually. Much heavier energetically. It's harder to hold space for a lot of people all at once in one program. I've worked behind the scenes of businesses. I've worked with clients. I've done it myself. And consistently when you're starting to support 10, 15, 20, 50 plus people, it's a, it's a big thing to hold space for, and it can be more energetically. taxing than we expect if we aren't prepared for it. And especially if we aren't really solid in the foundational parts of business, if we're not really solid in how we help people and who we help them and the messaging and positioning of this and the selling of it and talking to them and attracting them. Like if we don't have the core functions of a solid business down, then It's really hard energetically to hold space in this because you're going to be constantly dealing with imposter syndrome. You're going to constantly wonder if people are happy or not, we're getting results or not. And the sale, the selling is going to be more challenging because not only do you not have, you know, a solid list of clients who've had results. But you also don't have those foundational things figured out yet. You don't know how to really position yourself in the market. You don't know how to talk about what makes you and your offer and your work different. You don't have that deep mastery of your work and your genius solid yet because you're starting in this group program. And it's much harder to get people results in a group. scaled program than it is one on one. When you are working with someone one on one, you can get them results. If you know what you're doing and you're talking to the right person and you were doing the right thing, you can absolutely get people results. And so if you haven't gone through that experience of supporting people one on one, getting them results and going through that journey, which we'll talk about some of the pros of that in a second, it's really challenging to try to start doing that in a group. when people aren't getting as much one on one support, potentially no one on one support, depending on what type of program you have. And even if you do have, um, like a mastermind that has elements of one on one, you know, that's kind of putting this in a different category in a lot of ways, but even so that's still really tough to start there energetically. So group coaching absolutely has some pros. I think group coaching is incredible. I have a group coaching program, rich coach club. I love it, but ultimately it's not where I think you should start. So let's talk about the pros and the cons of private coaching. And then I'll get deeper into where I feel like you should focus your energy when it comes to private coaching. There are a lot of pros, to be honest. Um, not only Is this a great way for you to solidify your expertise like we were just talking about because you'll be working with someone very intimately and you will really start to hone in on what makes you different. What makes your work different? What is your ideal client actually struggling with? What are the actual things holding them up? And this is incredible market research. So not only do you get to understand your unique genius and your clients are feeding that back to you being like, Oh my gosh, this blew me away. Wow. I didn't know I could do it. They're going to be reflecting back to you what makes you a good coach. And also you're getting incredible paid market research because you are getting a deep dive in your ideal client's world in their head. And where they're spending their time and where the hiccups are and in what work truly helps them move towards their goals faster than if they didn't have your support. It also helps you get incredible client results and incredible client testimonials when you are mastering your one on one coaching, when you become a really good coach. database that like library of client results and testimonials is going to make the future of your business so much easier because it's going to make selling your private coaching easier, but it's also going to make it way easier when you do launch scaled offers, whether it's a membership, a mastermind, a group program, a course, whatever it is, when you do go to scalable offers, you have real evidence and testimonials of client results that are going to make that selling process. So much easier. Private coaching is also great because you requires way less leads. You just need like. five to 10 people who know you, who you are to like start getting clients. Um, and it is ultimately way easier to sell private coaching than something that's a group program because people inherently see the value in one on one support and personalized coaching and customized feedback and advice. Like you don't have to explain it to someone. People see the inherent value in that. And it's much easier to sell one on one access than it is to sell Scaled access and group access. You can also charge higher ticket per client when we're talking about private coaching. And ultimately private coaching is an easier energetic load than running a group program because you have less clients that you're focused on. You're also very focused on them individually. You can control how many clients you're working with at one time. Your confidence is going to accelerate and grow. really quickly in private coaching. And, um, it's just easier because you actually know each person. If you're working with five clients at a time, 10 clients at a time, you know exactly what's going on with them. You're not sitting there wondering if they're getting results and wondering if they're happy and wondering things you, you know, because you're in it with them. So it's actually way easier energetically to support people one on one than in a group. Program, especially at first and private coaching is absolutely the fastest way for you to establish yourself as a true expert in what you do and have the proof to back it up. Coming back to the client results here. If you want to come out and say that you are really good, mindset coach, for example, but we don't have any examples of what that looks like to actual people that you've worked with. It's a lot harder to establish that you're really an expert. Um, but if you have these testimonials of actual, like tangible results, your clients had in working with you, you are an expert, like you already are the expert. And now it's easier to really show up and establish yourself as the expert. And logistically, I didn't even talk about this when it comes to group coaching, but. Private coaching is so much easier to run as a business logistically. It requires way less overhead, less technology. No team is required, whereas when you're looking at a group coaching program as it grows and even just foundationally, it requires more systems, more tech, and as it grows more team, it's ultimately more complex than private coaching and private coaching. You could literally just say, here's my stripe link and here's a zoom link. The end. Like that's, that can be it. You don't have to worry about course platforms and email management software and all the million other things. You can really keep it super simple and lightweight. So if you're starting out, private coaching is logistically so much easier. There are of course, a couple of cons when it comes to private coaching. Nothing is ever. perfect and a hundred percent only good. And there's no compromises, right? Everything has compromises, but when it comes to the cons and the compromises of private coaching, I feel like they are totally worth it when you are starting out. So of course you can't work with as many clients in private coaching as you could in a group setting, but I think that's okay because of the price differentiation and how much you're charging. And again, all the pros and cons we already discussed. The other con with private coaching is that you will eventually, assuming you're good at this, you will book out of private coaching and hit your max client load pretty quickly. And that can feel frustrating. And in the moment it can feel like a bad thing, but ultimately it's a good thing because it's showing. that your expertise, like your, your messaging is working, who you're targeting and how you're targeting them and how you're talking to them is working and your clients are getting results and you're getting booked out, which means your demand is higher, which means it's time for a price increase, right? And so getting booked out can feel like, Ooh, I'm booked out. That's a bad thing, but actually it's an incredible thing and a tool to help you go to the next level. with your business and to increase your prices and to continue to master selling as your prices increase and messaging as your prices increase. So ultimately the cons of private coaching are kind of just about that scalability issue, which when you're just starting out, it's actually so much better to start with private coaching and to truly establish yourself as an expert, but also to master it and to master it. Um, everything about a private coaching business, because if you can master private coaching, when you transition into group coaching and scalable offers, you're going to be so much better. Like you're going to be a way better business owner, a way better marketer, a better salesperson, a better coach. Your confidence is going to be through the roof. Your rates can be far higher with like actual reasons and evidence for why. And it's. It's truly what can propel you and your business forward so much faster in the long run. If you're willing to do private coaching first, even if you don't want to do private coaching forever, can there be a season of your business where you do private coaching first and you master it, you figure out who you're helping and exactly how you help them and what makes you unique and why you are the coach for your people. You master your process. You master messaging and positioning and Um, content marketing and sales content and selling and coaching, actually being a good coach and tracking results and getting your clients results consistently and just mastering private coaching in all of its aspects, getting booked out, raising your rates, and then mastering selling at your new, your new rate, right? Getting solid in your expertise and truly just mastering this type of business. You can absolutely make six figures just focusing on private coaching. Um, by going in on private coaching exclusively by not getting distracted by group programs and scalable offers and courses and funnels and email things and yada, yada, yada. If you can put your blinders on and say, I am going all in on private coaching, I'm going to get my first client. I'm going to get booked out and start raising my rates. I'm going to hit six figures with private coaching. You know, once you start hitting 50 K a hundred K from private coaching, you can absolutely with confidence. Either transition completely into group programs and stop doing private coaching or transition where you have much higher private coaching rates and you start doing some group coaching and scaling both at this, you know, scaling the group coaching while you have your well oiled machine of private coaching happening on the side. Um, and so you can absolutely transition and leave private coaching behind later if you want. But by going through this season of focusing on private coaching, you are going to set yourself up for so much more success and ease going forward. And again, simplicity. If you're here listening to this podcast, if you're my type of person, you probably don't want to spend infinite amounts of time on your business. You probably have a limited amount of time. Whether that's energy, physical time, mental time, like you probably have very limited resources to work on your business. And what you want your business to be is something that's fulfilling, that is profitable and brings financial security to your family or financial freedom, potentially extra income to play with, who knows, depending on your situation and, and you want the ability to still focus on your life first. My people, like the people you are, I know, I know you are, if you're listening to this, like you want a business that allows you to prioritize your life. That isn't all about working around the clock 24 seven and doing the, like doing everything and just like burning out and trying to be everywhere and be everything to everyone all the time. Like that's not what we're doing here. When you focus on private coaching first and you close the door to everything else, You immediately block out so much noise and shiny object syndrome temptation because you were like, this is it. I'm going to be a really loud person. fucking good private coach. I am going to master this. I am going to figure out exactly what makes me different, exactly how I help my clients. I'm going to get these results for them. I'm going to raise my rates. I'm going to be a really good salesperson. I'm going to master this. And when business is at its simplest, like private coaching businesses are the simplest your business will ever be. And so you're going to master business while it's at its simplest, while you don't need to worry about email sequences and funnels. And webinars and team members or doing all the different things like you really can just narrow your focus to a couple of things. You can focus on creating content that attracts your dreamy clients. You can really hone in on selling and you can hone in and master coaching and like that's all that matters. You can really, really simplify. You don't need to have all of these fancy things set up. You just need these basics and you need to master them. And that's going to unlock so much for you. When you do then shift into other aspects of your business, you're going to be so much more confident. Everything's going to be so much easier because your skills will be so much stronger. Like you will actually be a skilled salesperson. You will be a true skilled coach. You will be so, it'll be so much easier to create content. to send emails, to do things like webinars and to create courses and curriculum. But when you allow it to just be simple and master the simple version before you add in all these layers of complexity, it's going to save you so much time. You're going to see. So many results faster and like this is just so much easier and you may choose to stay in private coaching. You can absolutely have a very profitable, very successful business and all you do is private coaching and that is okay. You do not have to have scalable offers. You do not have to do anything but private coaching if you end up loving it and not wanting to add anything else to your plate. It can be this simple forever or you can start with this simplicity and eventually add in scalable offers. when this whole side of your business is locked and loaded and mastered. And you can just continue to refine and raise your rates and work with potentially less clients as your rates raise. It's just like truly so simple. If you're sitting there looking at business and you're like, Oh, I'm supposed to be on YouTube and tech talk and I need to have a free email course and I need to have a webinar training funnel that leads to a tripwire offer that leads to my course that has an upgrade to work with me one on one and then that upsells them into my private coaching. And then over here I have a free Facebook group. And then over here I'm also trying to grow my tech talk and Oh, I should be blogging and posting on Pinterest. Like, Oh, I'm like, right, ah, I'm like, no, we don't, uh, we don't need to do that. You could just literally have one offer. You can have one way to work with you and you can have one result that you strive towards mastering for your clients. And you get really good about it. You really understand your dream person and where they're at, you're in their head. So then creating content and speaking to them is easy. You have one platform, maybe two, where you connect and get in front of your dream clients and you just refine that, master that, master the selling, master the coaching. Keep doing it. Keep refining. You can really tune out all the noise. You don't need to have an Instagram broadcast channel and a million other things, right? You can just really hone in. There's a lot of power when you say no. There's a lot of power when you simplify and you focus and you May see a lot of opportunities for other things. And it's so hard sometimes to mute those out. But when you've committed and chosen this path of focusing on private coaching and this path of simplicity, and you see the benefits of that simplicity and that mastery, it becomes easier to say no. And you're going to start to see this momentum grow and your revenue grow and your fulfillment grow and the mastery and your skills improve and it's just going to really start to propel you forward and make everything so much easier and ultimately more enjoyable. This is why I recommend you start with private coaching. Now you are your own person and you should feel totally empowered to make choices that feel right to you. But if any of this Just gave you the biggest sigh of relief and be like, Oh, that sounds good. Then I really encourage you to follow that thought. And that may mean like closing some of your group programs. I did that. I closed my membership and my mastermind at the very beginning of 2024, because I realized I needed to narrow down my focus, focus on Less offers and less programs and go through a season of refinement again, even though I've done this before. And so you may be at a place where you realize you need to close down a group program or shift what you're working on to focus on private coaching. Or maybe you're sitting there saying, this is all great, but I'm not gonna do that. That's fine. Like I'm still here cheering you on either way. But I do strongly believe that if you want to grow a business that can hit, you know, six figures, multi six figures, seven figures one day, and you are a coach and you want it to feel simple and you want to have confidence and you want to feel like you've mastered all of these core principles of business. running a coaching business before you have to hire a team and things get super complex, then I really encourage you to start with private coaching. I've always started my businesses focusing on one on one services first, whether that was graphic design or virtual assistance or coaching, I've always started with one on one work first. And I stand by that being where I recommend you start as well. So if any of this is interesting to you and you want to actually. focus on private coaching. You want to grow your business, your private coaching business to 50k, 100k. Wow. Um, working part time, like I work 12 hours a week or less and that's on a good week. And that's just the season of life I'm in as a mom and I've got maternity leave coming up and like this is very much a life first business where I can still show up and have tremendous impact on my clients, have a very profitable business and find a lot of personal fulfillment while keeping things really simple. And that's what I help my clients do as well in my 12 month program. Rich coach club, where we are all about growing and scaling and mastering that private coaching side of your business so that you can have this really simple and sustainable and profitable and enjoyable business. while working 15 hours a week or less. And then of course that can unlock so much for you for what's next for your business. I am actually hosting a live masterclass on April 23rd that is going to be all about how to do this. Like, what does this actually look like? How do you actually accomplish this and like the schedule and the offers and how does it all come together? And if you want to learn more about that, you can go to simplify with Megan. com forward slash registration. And the link will be beneath this episode as well. You can sign up for this live free masterclass happening on April 23rd. I will also be opening the doors to rich coach club on that live master class. The doors to rich coach club are only open twice this year. This is one of them, and I'm planning on opening them again once before the end of the year, September, October ish, probably. Um, but the doors are like not open in between then. So if you are looking for Support in this goal of growing your coaching business and this way that is sustainable and simple, then, and you want a community who's doing it alongside you, you want to mentor, who gets it, who's doing it with you. And you want access to, uh, exclusive trainings and curriculum to help get you there. Then. You want to come to this masterclass and see what it's all about and see if it's a good fit for you. So again, you can go to simplifywithmegan. com forward slash registration and you can sign up to join us live on the masterclass. I hope I get to see you live with me on April 23rd. I'll see you then.