267: Running An Effective Group Coaching Program - #GrowYourLife

Hey everyone, thanks for listening to the Grow youw Life podcast. My name is Jeremiah Krakowski and on this podcast I talk about how coaches, mentors and trainers can scale their businesses to make more money online and reach the kind of clients that they want. Now today I want to talk about how to run an exceptional group coaching program. I've been teaching this to my clients for the last year and I've been running group coaching programs for nearly a decade with a ton of success. In fact, I don't recommend that people do one on one coaching as their main business model, that you reserve one on one VIP type coaching for only a select few of the people that you work with. And so here's the thing. A lot of coaches go into the coaching industry with codependency based mindset where they want to help other people, which is a good thing, but they put their identity around how many people they can help and what they can do to help people with that. Okay, they're not thinking as a business owner. For me, we have built multiple coaching consulting businesses that have scaled to tens of millions of dollars. Not because we don't serve our clients, but because we put business models in place that allow us to not have to work ourselves to death that don't. That we don't need to do one on one calls trading dollars for hours, but we're able to serve a group as a whole at a high level. I'll tell you this, when you're doing group coaching, one of the differences is that you're not serving tons of different wide range of people. You're serving a very select specific group of people and you're learning how to attract that very specific group of people in front of you and help deliver a specific result. Now one of the mistakes that a lot of people make again when they get into coaching is that they're so focused on their identity being tied to delivering results to people. I hear it all the time from people. I'm not going to build a business if I can't deliver results. I get it. Again, sounds great. But the truth is, is that you are not the one responsible for the client getting results. I'm going to say that again and don't misinterpret it in some way that you think I said based on something I never said. I did not say that you don't deliver client results. I say that your responsibility is not the client's results. The result is the responsibility of the client themselves by doing the work in their business. Your responsibility is to create systems and training and processes that can pull the best out of them so that they can learn how to do that. And so, number one, we gotta break up with this codependent way of thinking if we want to be a successful business owner, that it's our responsibility to make sure, come hell or high water, I get everybody a result. No, it's not even a reality. And I have worked with thousands of coaches and the ones that have that thinking they're broke, they don't make any money because they're tying basically killing themselves with energy to others results. And that's not a way to build a business. That's not a way to run a family, that's not a way to be a human. And what codependency is is where we literally kill ourselves for somebody else. We sacrifice ourselves for somebody else's result. So boundaries are important. And you might be listening to me right now, you might disagree with what I'm saying. That's okay. Can I tell you this? That that's no way to successfully build a business. What a business is, is you get very specific about what you can do at scale to reach people and you still deliver results that way at scale. Okay? And so that's where group coaching comes in. And the way that you deliver exceptional group coaching is, number one, by accepting that, yes, it's less interaction than one on one, yes, you're not connecting with the same people at the same level. But number two, it's a far more profitable leveraged business model because you're not attaching your time to the dollars that you make. You're not tying your identity to the results that you deliver. And that's one of the number one things that you have to have to understand. Yes, we deliver results. Yes, we create excellent courses. Yes, we create incredible support and accountability. I'm not negating any of that, but I'm saying that you got to release the pressure and mental destruction that we put on ourselves. To have to strive so hard and work so hard to deliver the results declines. I meet people all the time and they do this and they're like, group coaching is not for me because I just, I just couldn't deliver the kind of results that I feel I need to do to attach my name to with group coaching. And they are choosing to make less money to not actually have a business, to have something that is inferior both for themselves and ultimately for the clients and the impact they want to have or when their idea is to have impact, they are limiting themselves by focusing so much on individual impact. And less on actually building a sustainable business that reaches a wider range of people. So number one, you got to choose. If you're doing group coaching, you have to choose that your revenue is important, the amount of money that you're making is important. And you might say this, well, that's putting profit over people. No, it's not. It's not at all. Because you're able to help more people by doing group coaching and you're able to reach more people and you're able to leverage your time to impact more people at that level. So you have to literally give up the need inside of you that again, this is the first stage with group coaching that you have to do that. I have to be the one that is responsible for everybody's result as far as that goes individually. And then you have to create systems that can impact people at scale. And the way that these systems work are we can use coaching groups, whether it be a Facebook group or a school community, where you can have people ask questions in the group. You know, we use this in my accelerator program where people can ask questions in a Facebook group and I can answer those throughout the week. I go in there and I respond to the questions. People leave. You do this on a Discord channel and you can host live coaching calls, live group coaching calls in a group setting with people where you can interact with the group on a live Zoom call and you can answer questions. Now again, you might be saying, but that's. I'm not able to deliver results to 100% of all the people by doing. See, you gotta really like resolve that thing and learn to let go of other people's choices over their lives and learn how to lead a group of people. By learning how to lead a group of people. This is like what a setting in a university does where you are somebody who is talking to a group of people and they are interacting with you through verbal interaction, through written interaction. And they're able to take your message, which is a one to many model, and you're able to communicate to multitudes of people to help deliver the results that they expect. And so for you to be able to build a business at scale, you have to learn to accept the one to many models limitations and then utilize the very best framework of what actually delivers results. In a one to many model, you're able to leverage live Zoom calls. You're able to leverage recorded classes and courses that answer questions people have. You're able to facilitate live Q and A interaction with your audience, with the people that you're looking to interact with. You're able to get them to ask questions consistently of you, so that then by asking those questions, they're able to get the answers and the solutions that they're looking for. And so then what you do is you're able to figure out, okay, what does the group as a whole, what are they dealing with the most? What are they wanting a solution to the most? The group as a whole starts to deal with similar problems, similar frustrations. And so your goal is to pay attention to what is the group as a whole asking about? What are the questions that the entire group is dealing with that they're wanting answers to? And so this person over here might ask a question, this person over here might ask a question, and you're able to bring those questions together and find what is the common thread across all of those. And now all of our marketing materials are used to draw in people that have these similar and common issues. And so you're able to serve this group as a whole by getting very, very specific to a few issues and not trying to serve dozens and dozens and dozens of issues with people. And so you're able to create courses on these. These problems that they're dealing with, and you're able to create frameworks on these issues. And by doing that, then you're able to lead people with your marketing material into a very specific place where you're able to get them results quickly. Okay? And so by you being able to do that, by you being able to communicate powerfully with a group of people by learning how to communicate, that means putting yourself into a position of authority in the group where people are looking up to you, where people are looking to you as somebody that they can respect, that they want to listen to, that they want to lean forward with and engage with. You're able to provide value to that group and teach them and mentor them and coach them and provide them with the support, the accountability that they're looking for, and the answers that are going to solve the problems that they have. And so this, the type of systems that we like to use is having some kind of group interaction and a schedule. You have a very specific scheduled time, one day a week, twice a week. You could do every day. I even know clients to do one call every day. And what it is, is these are boundaries that people know that within these boundaries is how they're able to engage with you, is how they're able to interact. They can show up on a live call, they can show up in a group interactive session setting to be able to get the help, the support, the accountability that they're looking for. Now, is everybody going to be served in this? No, because literally there are people who are going to choose to not show up. They're going to choose to not go through the training, they're going to choose to not interact. And so you got to learn to release the codependent control that you're trying to have over other people, doing what they should, but learn at the same time how to be assertive at leading people, at scale. But by telling people expectations, what you require of them, what you expect of them, how you expect them to show up, how you expect that interaction to go. And then when you do this, people will follow what you're saying. And so it starts with you having confidence in how you're communicating, believing that this process works. I can tell you this. We built multiple businesses in this space, and this process works extremely well to be able to reach people, to be able to create businesses that generate millions of dollars in revenue. And I think it'll work for you as well. If you are a coach, if you are a trainer, if you are a mentor, it's time to step over the threshold of, oh, I got to serve all these individual people and I help such a wide range of people and start to get more specific as to the ones that you can deliver results to the fastest. So who are the ones that engage with you the most, that you can deliver the fastest result to and that actually show up with you asking questions and leaning forward and actually interacting in a way where they want to get the results, where they're actually showing up on the calls? Not everybody's going to show up on your group calls. But when you can pay attention to who are the ones that are showing up, who are the ones that are actually engaging, you might have to answer questions that you don't always want to ask. Maybe you've already answered it before. But can I tell you this, that doesn't mean that you're a bad coach. It means that you've actually dialed in your coaching. Well, if people are asking the same question over and over and over again, and then you can have resources that you can direct people to, to get those answers that they're seeking. And so if you're a coach, if you're a mentor, if you're a trainer and you're looking, how do I shift into this group coaching world? You're selling a result, you're selling an outcome, you're selling a solution to people, but you're not taking hours and hours and hours of your time to deliver it. You create a system that contains courses, it contains the ability for people to contact you in the group so that the entire group sees all the questions. You create calls where people can ask questions and yes, will there people who slipped through the cracks? Of course you need to accept that fact. Will there be people who feel like they weren't served at the highest level by your group? Yes. And you have to accept that fact. But when you can learn and the number one skill that it takes to really do this well is to communicate well. When you can learn how to be a master communicator with your group, and this is what I mentor people on in my coaching community is how to communicate well, how to deliver the results that they promised to people, how to market to people well, how to bring people into their ecosystem and actually create the kind of environment that's going to deliver to those clients. When you can do this, you can learn to lead at scale and you can learn how to communicate your value to people to get them to take action. And you learn how to motivate people in the right way. It's about being assertive, not passive. You're not waiting for people to come to you with their questions, but rather you're somebody who provides the opportunity and then you directly give people the solution that they're looking for. When you can learn to do that, you can master this game of group coaching and group consulting at scale. I believe that you can do it. I know that you can. There's a lot of great coaches that are out there that they've crushed it at one on one coaching that when they transition to group coaching? Yes. Is it a bit of a hurdle that they need to jump past? Yes. Is there a bit of a struggle that they're feeling like, oh, I'm not sure if this is exactly how I want to do it. Oh, I'm not sure if I'm able to deliver this at the way that I want to. Oh, I'm not sure if I'm able to show up the way that I really want to in my business. But when they learn to accept those limitations and they learn to say, okay, I'm going to show up and I'm going to interact with people and I'm going to learn and I'm going to and I'm going to choose to give it my best with these people that are asking for my help, you're able to deliver results and create a business that's able to create the kind of money that you want to make. If you want to actually create the kind of income that you want to make group coaching, you need to do it one on one. Coaching is not going to make you the kind of money you want to make. It's going to burn you out and you're plateaued and you're limited as to how far you can go. And so the solution is to say, okay, I'm going to give up a lot of the benefits that there might be to one on one coaching. And I'm going to choose to put this into a very specific niche, a very specific idea that I'm going to help a group with, and I'm going to build an audience of people that I can help interact with a group on. And then I'm going to show up each day and I'm going to deliver results to those people and I'm going to help those people get the result that they expect from me. And so when you can learn to do this, you can have the kind of business that you want and the kind of results that people are looking forward to paying you for. All right, it's not rocket science, but it does take some courage. It does take defeating the fear and the worry and the doubts and. And the insecurities that we might have. They're telling us, oh, I'm not ready yet, or, oh, I'm not sure if people are going to want to listen to me like this. You know, it's comfortable to stay in one on one coaching. It's easy to stay in one on one coaching because you're not risking anything. You're not risking putting yourself out there and then the group rejecting you. As far as that goes. There's a lot that you got to deal with mentally when it comes to doing this, but the fastest way to do it is to just rip that band aid off and do it. Even if you feel uncomfortable, even if it's scary, even if you're worried that it's not going to work out perfectly. And then start to watch the seeds of those things start to fall into place for you in a positive way. All right, listen. This has been the Grow youw Life podcast. Stay plugged in. Plug into my YouTube channel. Subscribe. We'll see you on the next episode.