Group Coaching Core Essentials #16 - What Do Your Clients Want, Need and Prefer?

Similar to 1-1 coaching, group coaching is also customer-centric. Just as you co-create the relationship alliance and invite

your client to come up with a topic they want to explore in each coaching session to fulfill their goals from the coaching relationship; group coaching does this too. 

 Integrating your customer's needs, wants, and preferences in all program elements, including program logistics and delivery model, design, marketing strategy, and sales. Doing so will attract the clients you want in your program and contribute to achieving your business goals and success.

Principle: Know what your clients want, need, and prefer. 

 Action: Everything you do comes from this understanding of wants, needs, and preferences. Immersing yourself in their "world reality" will impact your program's design, delivery, marketing, and success. 

 Suppose you are adding group coaching as an additional offering to your existing client base. Consider reviewing your current client base and identify overlapping needs, wants, and preferences that lend to creating a group program and repurposing common themes in a group program offered at a different price than individual coaching. Alternatively, if you are pivoting to a new topic or demographic, reach out to people who may be a good fit and request an opportunity to have a conversation for information/research-gathering purposes. 

 Use this week to review any of the following questions:

      1. How customer or client centric is my 1-1 coaching program?

For example, Does the copy focus on you (what you do) or share the opportunity for your client (based on their challenges or desires)? Re. Logistics, is it based on when you want to work without considering your potential buyer's availability and schedule? Do your rates reflect what you want to earn even if your ideal client(s) can't afford your rates as they have young children and have to invest their money in multiple places? 

2. Identify what your client's needs are.

For example, what motivates your client to take action? Need for a community? Or possibly accountability? What is the price point my participant can pay? What factors do they consider when spending money? Are they budget-sensitive or not?

 

3. Identify what your client's wants are.

For example, do they prefer group coaching sessions during the daytime vs. the evening? Or do they choose live in-person sessions over virtual sessions? Or do they like a full-day (6-hour) offsite event more than biweekly 60-minute sessions for six weeks?

 

4. Identify what your client's preferences are. 

For example, do your clients want access to you for some individual coaching during the group program? 

 

5. What changes can you make in your program design and ensure your client's voice is included? 

 

I invite you to invest some time this week to ensure you integrate your clients' voices (needs, wants, and preferences) in various elements of your group coaching program.

Have a great week,

Evana and Jennifer

Group Coaching Essentials | Potentials Realized

Book a year-end 2023 Vision Call (15 minutes complimentary!) - https://calendly.com/jennbritton/2023-vision-laser-session-for-coaches 

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Group Coaching Core Essentials - 1 of 18: Clients at the heart of great programming

Recently, as part of our 18^th anniversary celebrations here at Potentials Realized, we pulled together some new quick resource guides for coaches and leaders in our core areas of business – group coaching, team coaching, and remote and hybrid work.

Here at the Group Coaching Ins and outs blog we’ll be taking a regular (i.e. weekly) dive into our new one-page checklist for Group Coaching, by exploring each of the 18 Core Group Coaching Essentials weekly. If you don’t have a copy of the resource, you can access it here. It includes 18 core areas to support you in designing, running and marketing your group coaching work.

Principle #1 starts with our clients, who always are at the heart of great programming as a coach. 

Principle: Create group programs based on the needs and preferences of your participants.

Action: Consider how your clients impact marketing strategies, delivery methods, the duration of your program as well as the program topic.

Co-designing with participants is at the heart of great group coaching work. It’s important to really get to know WHO you are designing for as their needs will dictate whether your group is meeting weekly for a quarter, daily for a month, or bi-weekly for a year.

What do you notice about the needs of your clients?

In the Group Coaching Essentials program we take a deeper dive into learning more about client needs, in a couple of different ways. One is an interactive method we use during our GEC calls (often rated as one of the favorite activities of the program!), and another in the Group Coaching Client Assessment form. Check that out here.

Activity this week:

Thinking about your ideal client, paint a more detailed picture by asking these questions:

·       What is the cadence and rhythm people want with your programming?

·       What goals are your ideal clients working towards?

·       What accountability support are clients wanting?

·       What else is important to note about your clients and their needs and preferences?

Enjoy the conversation, and consider joining us for the next Group Coaching Essentials program to shape a program catered to your clients needs.

With best wishes,

Jennifer

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Jennifer Britton - Group Coaching Essentials | Effective Virtual Conversations | Potentials Realized
Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder (for coaches)

Want to know what's new? Looking for remote and hybrid resources - Pick up a copy of the  Reconnecting Workspaces book or the 90-Day Guide for Success. Instagram: @ReconnectingWorkspaces

Build out your skills, toolkit and mastery in coaching in the remote and hybrid space with the Reconnecting Workspaces Certified Coach training (24 CCES). Or join us for one of our other ICF CCE approved programs:

Also author of Effective Group Coaching (2010), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Check out my author page on Amazon for all publications.