Add Value To Group Coaching In Your Practice

Many people wonder how to expand their coaching practice but not work harder. If you’re a coach and working too many one on one hours, trading dollars for hours, you might consider launching a group program! Group programs offer coaches the opportunity to serve more clients in less time. As long as your group has some homogeneous qualities, group programs may be the perfect thing to help you reclaim your time, serve more people, and maintain your income. If now’s the time for you, here are 10 features that can really help you rock your programs and achieve group coaching success!

1. Create Valuable Tools, Templates & Worksheets

   To support your group coaching work, you can provide tools, templates and worksheets for frequently asked questions. Many times group programs are chosen by people with similar issues, or in similar places in their development. Anytime you answer a question more than once with one of your clients, it’s likely you’ll be asked it again. So, it’s a good practice to write down those questions and develop helpful tools and worksheets to guide your clients through consistently and save time!

2. Start With A Robust Intake Process

   I believe coaching starts when someone says yes. So I consider the discovery call as the starting point. When someone searches for a coach, they often feel stuck or in some sort of pain. So, they already have a narrative about where they are, but may not know what to do next.

   I believe this is a great time to hold the space for a ‘warm lead’ to express their needs in the intake process. This is why I ask people some questions prior to granting them access to my calendar. I call it a Discovery Call. When you plan it, your intake process can often help a potential client in many ways.

   Since it’s the firsst step of the coaching process, I ask specific questions in the application that clients may have never been asked. This helps them start to think more critically about where they are now and what they’d like to accomplish.

   Therefore, a robust intake process gets it all started. Not only do we begin the coaching dialog, but the intake can easily begin to establish boundaries, expectations and the co-created relationship between coach and client, even if the client is a group participant.

3. Provide Training Modules 

   Training Modules provide a valuable backdrop to coaching. Many of my clients work with me as a business coach, and as such, there are many milestones they move through that are consistent. I provide online training modules that make it easy for them to stay focused and work in between live sessions. Module topics include Defining Your Ideal Client, Mindset, Time Management, Personality Styles, Values, Goal Setting, Packaging Services, How To Price, Creating a Free Offer, Email Campaigns, Newsletters, and many other helpful topics. Using an online training delivery system allows clients email access to me as they work through the content. Each module also contains downloadable templates, tools and resources that they can use again and again even after their commitment to the program ends.

4. Use Webinars for Group Coaching

   Webinar technology can really enhance your client’s experience. Sometimes working for yourself gets lonely. Offering Q&A webinars provide you with a visual connection with others. This is a wonderful way to stay connected. Webinars provide 2-way communication and consistent feedback.

   Another benefit of using webinars for group coaching is that they can be easily recorded, cataloged and stored for future use. Recorded group coaching sessions enhance the value of your program because clients can attend and benefit even when they are absent from the live meetings.

   There are many great webinar programs available. Two of my favorites for small business owners are anymeeting and zoom. Of course there are others, but these two are the front runners that are affordable small business tools.

5. Question and Answer Hot Seats For Each Participant

   Any group coaching program can provide a real-time opportunity for hot seats. A hot seat is designed to ‘turn up the heat’ on each client as he/she is coached live! Offering personal Q&A time or “Hot Seats” provides clients direct communication, feedback, brainstorming and the opportunity to regularly mastermind. In small groups, this live component not only offers a hot seat for one group coaching member but also opens the coaching and guidance to other business owners to mastermind and brainstorm. This creates a group cohesiveness and builds trust with participants.

6. 1-1 Live Strategy Sessions
   

   

   When you offer live 1-1 strategy sessions, you extend the value of any group coaching program. You also set the stage for a direct connection between yourself and your clients. You’ll be able to better understand their business and personal goals when you have 1-1 time.

   Another benefit is your ability to complete a gap analysis so you can adapt any additional learning and Q&A sessions to best serve your client’s needs. Offering live strategy sessions allows you to build rapport, then more easily ‘dance in the moment’ during client hot seats.

7. Client Success Case Studies 

   Use your client’s past successes to illustrate group coaching results! Case studies can effectively demonstrate how others have been successful. Case studies can also turn the spotlight onto sensitive issues and topics while maintaining personal distance.

8. *VIP Upgrades* and Private Strategy Calls

   For enhanced accountability, direction and support, it’s a great idea to add an upgrade option for any group coaching participants who desire more support and access. Depending on the size of your practice, you may want to do this in the form of a group VIP day, which you can hold periodically throughout your program. Or consider offering your clients the option to upgrade to VIP access one by one. You can offer a set number of VIP private calls as part of your package, or use them as additional offers to deepen their package.  Be sure to ask permission for sessions to be recorded and later send them to the client for their own records.

9. Private Group Forum
   

   A private group forum can be a great benefit for your group coaching program that costs you very little time. With tuition to your group program, you can allow private access to your participants via a private group forum. Clients can be as active as they wish. Online forums also allow accessibility all hours for your clients to ask questions, ask for feedback and get support whenever they need it. This group work can be some of the most powerful and valuable benefits for participants because they can tap into the strength and masterminding of a group.
   

10. Accountability Partners
    

    One of the key reasons people opt into coaching is to enhance their accountability to work on their goals. When you offer to match people up as accountability partners, it makes it so much easier. Depending on the length of your program you may cycle partners every few months, offering your participants the opportunity to work with different people. An accountability partnership shares responsibility and co-creates when they will check in with each other to keep each other on track.

In Conclusion

So, if you’re working too much and too long, add a group coaching program to your practice. It can help you consolidate your learning, work with more people at one time and enhance their results. Group programs allow you to offer your coaching less expensively for others in homogenous groups, yet still get the benefits and payoff of working with you. Consider these 10 Key Success Strategies when building your group coaching program.

If you’d like to learn more about my group coaching programs book a complimentary Discovery Call with me. We’ll connect, talk about your business and see if it’s a good time to work together toward your goals.