In this advisory session, burnout recovery coach Daria presents her current service funnel— a free monthly signature workshop, a €40 one‑hour sleep‑recovery workshop, and a €1,200 three‑month burnout recovery program— and asks George Kao for feedback on gaps and client‑acquisition channels. George praises Daria’s consistency in delivering the free workshop and highlights the large price jump from the €40 session to the €1,200 program as a potential conversion barrier. They discuss how to differentiate the €40 offering from AI‑generated advice, and agree that framing the human‑coach advantage is essential. George suggests extending the initial discovery call from 15 minutes to a full hour, using an application/feedback form to vet prospects, and positioning the hour as a low‑risk way to experience the coach’s style, which can naturally lead into the three‑month program. They also cover practical tactics for LinkedIn: using LinkedIn events, requiring registration before sharing Zoom links to avoid “Zoom bombing,” and leveraging LinkedIn outreach to invite interested attendees to the free hour. Throughout, George emphasizes building trust, reciprocity, and a clear, protected funnel before adding any middle‑tier offers.
Chapters
Daria, thank you for letting me record this. You just mentioned that you're a burnout recovery coach and you're wanting to get my feedback about your business model. So please go ahead.
Yeah, exactly. So my current model includes— I have free signature workshop to introduce my work and I run it online monthly, every month the same workshop. And when I can, I do it in person if I find a local hub. I live in Spain, in Malaga. I recall that 1-hour sleep recovery workshop priced at €40, because people who, yeah, who suffer burnout, they— this is the most common issue they come with. Uh, and I have 3-month burnout recovery program priced at, uh, €1,200. And my question is, uh, I'm trying to understand, like, what's might be missing in the model of funnel, like what kind of gaps you typically see in models like this. Yeah. Am I missing some important step between free workshop and 3-month program? Yeah. And what channels you would recommend for me to find right clients? Because now I'm active on LinkedIn only.
Okay, great. Thank you. Very clear. And I imagine you learned from Tad Hargrave as well?
Yes.
Yeah. Okay.
I'm on the program.
Yeah, yeah. You're a member of Marketing for Hippies. That's awesome. Yeah, I love Tad's work and I can tell because you're talking about Signature Workshop and you're talking about business models and you're talking about— that was one other thing you said. Anyway, it's good. I'm glad you're getting the Tad Hargrave content. And those of you who don't know Tad Hargrave, look up marketingforhippies.com and he has so much to offer and he has a lot of great YouTube videos too. Okay, so let's talk about Um, I love that you're doing your monthly online, you know, free webinar essentially to introduce your work. Um, that's great. And the fact that you're doing the same one every month, I imagine you're like improving it, you know, every, every time, right?
Polishing it every time.
Yeah, totally. You're getting better and better at it. It's— that's impressive because a lot of people aren't willing to do the same thing over and over because it's boring or whatever. But those who are willing to do it keep getting better at it. And, um, of course then there's more word of mouth and, you know, more interest in people working with you, etc. Okay, so then you have the $0 free workshop and then you have the $40, uh, sleep recovery workshop recorded course, I guess. Yeah, you could say single course or single session course or something. Um, and then I'm wondering, of course, these days How would you answer someone who says, oh, how is your $40 sleep recovery workshop different than what I could get from talking to ChatGPT?
Oh my God.
Real, real.
Yeah, yeah, you need human support. Someone who understands.
I mean, sorry to put you on the spot, but, but it's a, and maybe this is something you need to, you need to think about. And it's not like someone is— someone might not literally ask you the question, but I think it's good to weave the answer, you know, naturally into the sales page of that $40.
I did it for my recovery program. I did it exactly. It's like the first lines I wrote, why working with a real coach, human coach, is much better than artificial intelligence. I wrote like, AI never burned.
Yeah, right. Really good. I'm really glad you did that. But yeah, with the $40 one, you might as well also, you know, work with AI to come up with an answer. No. So, so, okay. So you've got the $40 thing and then, and then that kind of jumps immediately to the $1,200 spend. Yeah. That for 3 months, right? For 3 months. That might not, and, and so it's like you're going from a, and, and the $40 workshop is how long?
1 hour.
1 hour. Okay. So you're spending, yeah. So the person is spending 1 hour and $40. And getting your, you know, your guidance and how much live. It's just do it yourself, right?
It's do it yourself. Yeah. But there are 3 very powerful practical exercises. So it's not theoretical, but you can truly, truly evaluate or see my work.
Yes, that's really great. And, but this is even more important why you need to say this is not generic advice, meaning it's not ChatGPT advice. It's based on, you know, proven experiences from me and my clients, whatever you wanna say. Okay. So, so jumping from $40 in 1 hour to $1,200 in 3 months is a huge gap. Now, that's okay if it works, but it, the fact that you're asking me makes me feel like, yeah, it does not work well. Right, exactly. Right. So that's what I suspected is that's a really big jump. Now sometimes it works because the people you're working with and talking with and having exploratory calls with are people who don't mind spending the €1,200 and they have the money to spend and they're okay with that and that's great. Other times, well, and the truth of course is the more trust you have with somebody, the more they're like €1,200, no big deal. I like you, I like working with you, let's do it. But that means you need to have conversations with people to build that trust. So that makes me wonder, it's okay. Again, the gap is okay because I mean, ideally we have fewer offers that work really well so that it's less complicated for our business model, less complication.
It's very difficult to find something shorter. Yeah. Uh, for people who are burned, uh-huh. I mean, if you offer something, some shorter programs, yeah, it's very difficult to help them. Even 3 months, it's too short.
Oh, interesting. Well, you know, funny, funny enough. I feel like that's— I feel like probably all of us feel that way about our work. Like, we all wish our clients could spend 12 years with us, you know, every week, and then they'll really get the deep work, you know, they'll really transform. But nobody says, oh, I wish my clients could only— they only need 3 sessions and they're all done for the rest of their life, right? Like, most of us want our clients to be with us for a long time because that's how the work really deepens. And so we— so I get it. And truly, Habit change and deep transformation, obviously, if it's to be sustainable, it obviously takes a lot of time and effort and guidance and support and all that. Okay. Now, so my question to you is, it's not, I don't feel like we need to necessarily add anything in the middle yet. My question is, how do you invite, do you invite people into a one-to-one conversation with you? Yeah. So that they can, oh, you do.
Okay. Yeah, constantly. For example, after workshops, uh, I usually say, uh, please give me feedback in exchange for 15 minutes, like 15-minute feedback in exchange for 15-minute session with me. And they usually agree. I mean, they like this model, so they come for calls after my workshops with me.
So, so they come for half an hour call, 15 minutes is feedback to you, 15 minutes is you giving them a sample of the work. Okay. Yeah, that's good. I definitely, I love that. And how has it been? Like how many people, what's the percentage of attendees who say yes to that?
I would say, I don't know, like 5%, but super low and not for the whole program. Okay.
Okay. So, so 5% of the attendees say yes to your free half-hour call.
Ah, from the attendees. Oh, now I got it. No, I think it's like, um, more than 50.
More than 50%? Yeah, it's wonderful. Amazing. Okay, that's actually really good. Um, so it's— and, and for, for those who attend your free call, how many become, uh, for signing for the full program?
Like, no one.
No one. That's interesting. Okay, my, my instinct, my intuition is that you need to have a longer free call. Oh, and it's funny, funny you say that. Oh, they can't get anything from 3 months, but I'm okay with them getting 15 minutes of my time. It's like, you see what you see where the disconnect is? You're like, 3 months is barely enough time, but 15 minutes, no, no problems. Like, how can you do anything in 15 minutes? I can't even answer this question in 15 minutes. You know, that's like, we're already done. All right, goodbye everybody. 15 minutes is over, right? Like, like, like you're there's not enough of a trust built, not enough impact, not enough just friendship built to say, hey, now can you spend, can you send me $1,200? Is this good enough? 15 minutes. Daria, we've been talking for 15 minutes. Can you send me $1,200, please? I have a program for you. You're feeling awkward about it and you should because we barely know each other.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, the fact that you're here means you probably watched some of my videos or maybe you attended something of mine in the past. And so this is a similar relationship. We've spent 15 minutes talking and you're not willing to spend $1,200 with me. But, but you shouldn't. It's like, it's not enough relationship. It's not enough connection, not enough trust.
Uh-huh.
Now, but if I give you an hour of my time, then you probably feel guilty and want to spend $1,200. No, I mean, I'm being real. I mean, I'm not saying we should make people feel guilty, but, but I'm not saying that. I'm saying that there is, there is a real human desire to reciprocate. And, and it's not that people spend money with you because they feel guilty and they want to give you some money back for the hour they spent with you. No, it's the win-win-win in their minds. Like, okay, Daria is such a nice person. She helped me for an hour or 45 minutes or whatever. And I'm actually interested in her program. So it's a win-win-win. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Sure. I'll send you the $1,200 and let's do the program. You see, so, so I, this is, yeah, so I feel like, I feel like you should at least try. I'm not saying forever, forever you should do 1 hour, you know, with everybody who wants it, but at least try it with like the next 5 people who say yes to your free call. Do an hour.
And should I offer it in email? Like immediately I tell them if you want Yeah, if you give me feedback, I will give you like 1 hour of free session.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, yeah. So, so, well, you could say, okay, I have, or you could say, I am giving away a few 1-hour coaching or healing or whatever sessions, okay? And, um, please, uh, fill out this form and then I will get back to you if, if I can give you one of those, those, those sessions. So at least there's a bit of an application. I mean, not application, but they give you feedback about the session. Right, the free thing they attended, they give you feedback, and maybe they tell you a little bit more about what, you know, you can ask them more about what their, what their issue is so that you can get a sense of whether they're the right person. You got me? And then, and then for the people who seem more right, oh please, you know, please take me up on this because, because I think I can really help you even in this 1 hour.
Yeah.
And of course, 1 hour is a nice spacious time where you do have some time to talk about the 3-month program. In fact, the simplest way I like to work my way into the sales conversation without being awkward, um, or without pushing, I always say, hey, it looks like we have maybe 15 minutes left to our time together, and I just want to, you know, there's still more we need, we can talk about, but I also want to see if you have any questions about how I work with, how I do deeper work with clients and things like that, because I feel like there's some deeper work we can do. But I, you know, there's no obligation at all. But in case you have any questions about the deeper work, I want to make sure I get that answered before we, before we leave. Do you have any questions? You know, that kind of thing.
So, and can I go into people on LinkedIn, for example, who are interested in my workshop? And yeah, of course.
Oh yeah, I mean, you can offer this 1-hour thing to anybody who's interested in your work, even if they didn't attend your free workshop, you can still offer it as long as they seem like the right fit. Obviously, you know, have some vetting before you say yes to the hour with them, right?
And what do you think about LinkedIn free events? Like, uh, like, like no registration for workshop but, uh, going online on LinkedIn? Yeah, it's good.
Yeah, why not? I mean, if it works to get people to interact with you, sure. Yeah. And in terms of just your, your, um, it's always— I would never give out the Zoom link without registration. Always make someone register to get the Zoom link because you want to protect yourself from Zoom bombing. Zoom bombing is when your Zoom link is out there publicly. I've experienced this. Terrible, terrible. It's terrible. Like, people who are trolls they see free Zoom links and then they attend and they share really racist things in the chat and like they even screen share pornographic things. I've experienced that myself and it's been terrible. So always get someone to register before they get the Zoom. Anyway, but Daria, I think you should try that next before you get things complicated and add a middle offer and maybe you should, maybe you should, you know, but but at least try this first.
Wow, thank you so much. You're welcome.
Yeah, thanks for asking. Yeah, yeah, and thanks for being open to that feedback too.
