THE ROAD TO SIX FIGURES: MULTIPLE INCOME STREAMS FOR COACHES, CONSULTANTS AND EXPERTS.

Before you roll your eyes because you’ve seen 8 zillion of these posts, let me REALLY bore you to tears. 😊 I’m providing you the SAME information I’ve been covering for YEARS. Since 2011 at least, AND this below is loosely transcribed from a live training I did in 2012. BUT..

BUT,
but
BUT…

I do it honestly. I talk about the pros and cons, the real risks and the EGO risks, the REAL stuff. So, I hope you’ll stay with me.

We’ll cover the “big” income streams, AND
the pitfalls to profit inherent in EACH.

✅ 1:1 Coaching (#obvi)
✅ Membership Options
✅ Workshops
✅ Large Conferences
✅ Small Retreats / Intensives

There are at least as many combinations of coach income streams as there are coaches. My goal for you is for you to create your own roadmap to six figures. But, here are some different avenues that you might be considering and a couple of those things to consider about each when you are getting serious about some leveraged income as an expert.

✅ One – on – One Services / Coaching / Consulting ✅

So obviously one avenue to income as an expert is the one-to-one programs, consulting or coaching work. Here’s what I love about 1:1 work, even though I don’t offer it any more:

💥 it is a quick way to cash. You sell, you get paid, you deliver. (in that order, by the way.)
💥 it provides high value;
💥 you don’t need a bunch of prep-work to get started. You simply identify a need, clarify goals, pitch coaching and start!
💥 there’s no need for a big promotional push. It is offered one-on-one and it is sold one-on-one.

So those are all the positives. We can always offer additional coaching, consulting , copywriting, social media gigs but — here’s the down side — there is no time leverage there. And the negative about having a one-to-one practice is that you end up creating more of a job rather than a business.

This is why I walked away from the 1:1 coaching income, even though it was quite lucrative. I wanted my income to be fully based on leverage-able income streams.

✅ Membership Options ✅

Recurring income through membership is a popular thing to talk about. And obviously there is tremendous time leverage here and there are also consistent payments. That’s phenomenal.

But, take it from me… who’s been doing membership since WAY before memberships were cool… do not think because membership options are CHEAPER than 1:1 work, they are easier to sell.

In fact, the hardest thing about creating recurring income through membership is that it makes a poor stand alone product or option. When I FIRST tried to fill my coaching gym (my first ever membership) at the beginning as a stand alone program, I couldn’t give that sucker away.

Literally. And yet, when I offered it on the BACK END of a high dollar retreat, it not only helped sell the retreat (acting as a guarantee of sorts) but it also “hooked” people on the routine, the accountability and the support of the coaching gym.

If you are looking for this recurring income through a membership, particularly online membership, or any sort of virtual gym…. there are a couple of things you need to keep in mind to make this sell like hotcakes:

💥 One, it doesn’t sell very well as a standalone product or program. So consider building it in on the backend of everything you do. That was my strategy for “the coaching gym,” and it worked beautifully. If you serve people well in that membership program, you’ll find a high percentage of them will continue to pay after they have sampled it for a little while because it was built into another program, retreat or event they paid for.

💥Next, find a way to infuse your membership with a human element. One of the biggest ways that these recurring income gurus are failing coaches, consultants and experts is they don’t know what a membership program or online program NEEDS in order to sell. If you think you’re going to go and sell information where people are going to sign-up for some sort of training every month and they just go online to some protected forum and download this and download that…. You are going to be really disappointed because information is a dime a dozen out there.

The key thing missing from membership programs or online programs that aren’t selling is a human element They want to create a fix it and forget it scenario with plenty of money and no heart. BUT… with no heart, the money will dry up.

So if you’re looking for recurring income — and I think you should be — create something that can be a high value, backend product or program to everything else you’re offering and be sure that your membership option has a human element.

Somehow create a way for them to engage with you. With Women Who WOW, members engage with me twice a month in a one-on-one phone call.

These laser calls are private,
high-level,
and VERY focused.

There are additional human elements mixed into Women Who WOW as well.

E-coaching one day a month,
live trainings,
hot seat masterminds,
live in-person events.

This is one of the reasons that our membership continues to grow when others seem to fizzle out. the HUMAN component.

This is why people stay and pay — because of the HUMAN element. Information is free, so your membership will have to have some sort of creative human element to it.

✅ Workshops ✅

Workshops are a great way, especially if you’re starting with no list or a local list, to grow your list, a great way to get paid to market. I began offering local workshops as a way to hustle up some cash, but also because NO ONE ELSE Was inviting me to speak on their stage.

Workshops allowed me to give targeted value to those I wanted to serve, as well as grow my brand and generate demand or my TWISTED LITTLE view of doing business! 😊

Workshops are fairly easy to put on and promote. The more laser focused your topic for your workshop, the easier it is to sell. So, for instance, I wouldn’t host a workshop on Business Success, but I WOULD — and have — sell a workshop on Pricing, Packaging and Promoting yourself.

So you want the topic to be very very laser focused.

A workshop can (and should) have pretty low overhead because you can have people either bring their own lunch or you can save money by renting a room for free at a local bank, things like that. So workshops are a good way to get paid to promote and then start building your list, even start making some great money.

✅ Large Conferences ✅

I loosely define a “conference” as having between 60 – 500 or more people, and taking place over 1 to 3 days. Conferences are awesome, but they are a TON of work and MOST people who teach you how to put them on are teaching using faulty economics… which COULD (and often DOES) lead to people losing their shirt.

Here are the pros:

💥 They’re a huge positioning tool. Hosting a large conference allows you to invite amazing speakers and associate yourself with great brands that come in as sponsors. Plus, you get to design the conference to BE a positioning tool.
💥 They are a great marketing engine because you’re going to have to do more to fill this conference than you ever thought you’d have to do. 😊 You’ll benefit greatly from the groundswell of marketing you’ll do to fill the conference.
💥 You’re going to benefit from the exposure at the conference and if you’re smart, you are going to be profiting long after the conference. Larger conferences of that size lends itself well to multiple income streams.
💥 You can make money from sponsorships with larger conferences and also even with smaller conferences frankly.
💥 I don’t AGREE with it, but you can also even make money with the speakers. I mean, there’s many conferences that you go to where people have actually paid to speak on the stage.

Bottom line: you can make money with these in a lot of different ways.

But be forewarned: Most people DRAMATICALLY underestimate what it’s going to take to fill those seats. Each conference carries with it something I call “ego risk.” And let me tell you, I have walked away from some fairly empty rooms with a bruised ego, before I kind of figured out how to put butts in seats and how to put the RIGHT butts in seats. But if you’re going for a larger conference, I want you to know that it is harder than you think to fill it and to make it very very profitable for you.

Is it worth it? Absolutely! Those larger conferences are absolutely worth it. You just need someone walking with you who have been through that before. There’s a monetary risk as well with a larger conference. Typically, you have to put some money upfront and if you don’t monetize it very deliberately — and very fully — then you’re left with a very real scenario of losing a LOT of money.

✅ Small Intensives / Retreats ✅

Small intensives are my sweet spot..six to twelve people, a mastermind type of environment, two to three days together. I love it and have proven it to be immensely profitable over the past decade.

You can typically count on — if you have filled a small mastermind with six to twelve people — clearing about $20,000 after expenses for 2-3 days of your time. And actually… it’s a GREAT time. Low stress, amazing connections, life long relationships created.

So these are pretty intimate retreats… they’re highly profitable, very rewarding; and they create phenomenal raving fans for you because people crave this intimacy and this hand-on touch. (My small group, multi day intensives range from three to five thousand dollars to attend.)

The PRIMARY pitfall to look out for, is getting the wrong people in the wrong room. In a group that is very intimate, 6-12 people, you don’t want to end up with a bad apple. That is why I recommend doing invitation marketing. I actually had someone come to one of my workshop a couple of months ago, and they said,” Can I ask why you don’t promote all of your stuff on Facebook. I would have never known about this if I wasn’t invited.”

And I said “yes. I don’t put my stuff on Facebook because I have a rule about my events. That rule is NO CRAZIES and NO LAZIES. And the only way I can guarantee that is if I used an invitation only policy.”

Now, some people aren’t willing to do that. They are going to market heavily on Facebook, they are going to try to depend on Instagram and they are going to FIRST try the “message to the masses” approach to filling an event, program, or even a launch.

BUT, mark my words: Invitation marketing is POWERFUL. Powerful beyond measure. AND… here’s what no one believes…

With events
and with launches,
if you start out with the “market to the masses” approach,
you will EVENTUALLY
get to a place — being desperate enough—
to start doing invitation marketing. 😊

So, I suggest you start there. But regardless of what you try, you will end there when you want to sell the event, unless you cancel it. And so I encourage you to use invitation marketing for any event or program that you want to enroll people in.

But, if you are going to do a small intensive, something that people are paying a good amount of money for I consider this invitation-only marketing imperative, just so you don’t get the wrong people in the room.

There are countless ways to make money as a coach… I’ve left off information products, online programs, and more. The KEY is to begin forming your OWN roadmap to six figures.

💥 What will you offer?
💥 To whom?
💥 At what price point?
💥 And when will you start?

If I can help you in any way, message me.