Should You Market Your Program Before It’s Ready?

Transcription

Hey, guys. What’s up? Yuri back with you. Welcome back to the show. Today, we’re talking about should you market your program, your coaching program before it’s ready?

This is a terrific question and this has come up a few times amongst our clients so I thought you know what, let’s talk about it on the episode, on the podcast and let me give you my perspective on this.

If we look at the idea that we need to have everything done before we start anything, the reality is that most of us are never going to do anything. We’re always trying to get our ducks in a row. I love that saying like, “I’m just waiting to get my ducks in a row.” Guess what? By the time that happens, you’re going to have no more ducks.

Why a systemized program is key – but doesn’t need to be perfect

I’m a big believer in taking imperfect action. I’m a big believer in having an idea of where you’re going to go with your program and at least understanding the process, but in terms of the nitty gritty, what’s the first video that I’m shooting, does that have to be all done? What’s the second video? All the specifics of the content, do those need to be ready before you can start enrolling clients? My belief is no. Because if you’re running a coaching program, there’s two ways of doing it. I think for most people starting out, the best way to do it … and if you’re not, and this is specific to running a group program for the most part, whether that’s two people, 20, 200, doesn’t matter, not necessarily one on one. If you’re doing one on one, you don’t really have a business because it’s improv. For the lack of a better term, it’s improv.

What you do need to have in place before enrolling clients

If you don’t have a system in place, first of all, attracting clients and most important, the delivery, there’s no system there. Who do you help? I help people with gut issues, cancer, weight loss, diabetes. You’ve got no system. You’re helping a smorgasbord of people and you’re having individual conversations with them, and there’s no rhyme or reason to how you’re helping them other than you giving them advice. You can’t scale a business like that.

What I’m talking about is when you move away from one on one to one to many, you need some type of systemized program that everybody goes through. They all come in, they do this, this, this and this. Maybe they have some check-ins with you individually, but for the most part, there’s a fundamental training that is given to these clients to help them go from where they are to where they want to be.

Does that training need to be done before you enroll clients? The answer is no. The answer is really you just have to be one step ahead of your clients, which means this. Let’s say you know exactly, you have a four-week or a six-week or an eight-week program. You have the overarching structure of what’s going to be covered in each of those different weeks, the steps that people are going to go through, right? You can’t market anything without knowing that. You cannot enroll clients without telling them the process through which they’re going to go, right? You have to know what that process looks like, but again, you don’t have to have the content created within that process yet.

Let’s say that today, you’re opening up the doors and you’re saying, “You know what, I’m going to start enrolling clients.” The only thing you need is the first week or so of content to be created, which means that they come in today and you have the first whatever needs to be done on the first week for them to do, a couple videos, a couple worksheets, whatever it might be, as long as you have that ready, you can enroll clients. And while they’re going that first week, what are you working on? You’re working on week two, right? It’s really almost like a beta. It’s you’re doing the program live, but you’re one week ahead of your clients and as they go through it, they’re going to tell you some really cool things. “Hey, I’m kind of stuck here. I don’t understand this.” Making notes, you can always go back and correct that or make things more clear in the future, but while they’re working through week one, you’re working through week two or module two. As they get to module two, what are you working on? Module three.

This is how I built my Super Nutrition Academy. This took me a thousand hours to build. I would never do it again. Never recommend you to do something crazy like that. It was more of a do-it-yourself course. It’s a 12-month pretty much certification in nutrition and what I did is I actually created the first two months before I released it. And then, I was under the gun to create the rest of it as clients were coming through. I gave myself a two-month buffer. I said, “I’m going to get the first two months done so that I have a little bit of breathing room. People come in today. I technically don’t have to do anything for two months ’cause that content’s ready to go for them, but once they’re at two months, what’s happening next? Month three. I have to get that stuff done.”

As clients are coming in, they’re working on month one. What am I working on? I’m working on month three. When I’m finished month three, I’m at month four. Now they’re coming into month two and now month one, two three and four are done, and I’m just a little bit further ahead of them on this little journey or this little race if you will. I didn’t create all 12 months before I started enrolling clients. I didn’t have to. I would’ve put off arguably the one program that has made our business millions of dollars. I would’ve delayed that by a whole year. Instead what I want you to think about is what’s the minimum viable product? What’s the minimum I need to get done in order for clients to come in? The answer to that is, as I just said, the first week or so of your program.

Fyre: An example of a total mess

Now with that said, I do want to make a public service announcement. I just watched a movie the other night on Netflix called Fyre, tremendous movie. If you want to get a reality check of some of the shenanigans people get up to, it’s insane. It’s about this douche bag, Billy McFarland who … I call him a douche bag. You’ll see why when you watch the movie. Essentially, he puts on this massive festival in some remote island in the Bahamas, $38 million in investments and delivers on zero of it more or less. Ends up getting millions of dollars in lawsuits, goes to jail, the whole thing.

This is a great example of what I do not want you to do. See, what they did really well is they marketed the hell out of that thing. They had the top models in the world posting on Instagram. There’s a huge amount of buzz around the event and they had a lot of … They sold out the events in two days. It was like several thousand people and they were selling packages for like $25,000 for a cabana or like a villa on the beach that didn’t even exist. It was ridiculous, right?

I’m not saying market the hell out of something you’re never going to create. I’m saying you’re obviously a better person than that. I’m saying know where you’re going with your program. Have a really good idea and outline and structure of it, but don’t procrastinate and obsess over “Oh, my God, I haven’t got all my videos done for the whole program. I don’t have everything ready.” It’s okay. It’s always going to be good enough to get your clients results.

How I’ve built our trainings – and why they’ll keep getting better

When we first started our health business accelerator, number one, it was more than half the cost of what it is now. The reason for that is because at the time, it was a two-day intensive workshop. That’s it. It was two days and then sayonara, see you later.

What we recognized was like if our clients’ results are number one, maybe we should turn this into a longer program. Eventually, it morphed into an online program, six months, all good stuff and then, we started adding things in like “Hey, we’re going to take care of all the tech for you. We’re going to build out your tech. We’re going to include free tickets to Healthpreneur Live. We’re going to bring in some more coaches. We’re going to do all this cool stuff.” As a result, the program got better and better and better and better, but I didn’t know what that stuff was going to look like from day one.

Even to this day, honestly, as of yesterday of this recording, I have still gone back into our online portal and I’ve gone back over some of the initial trainings and I’ve looked at this needs to be improved, this needs to be updated or we’re missing something here. I need to add something in here. This is the beautiful thing is that it’s a living, breathing organism. You make it better over time. You’re going to see feedback from your clients. They’re going to say, “Yes, this is working. I’m stuck here.” You’re going to see the same issues come up over and over again and instead of you responding individually all the time for the rest of your life to that issue, what do you do instead? You create one good training around it and you put inside your membership portal or your online portal for your clients. Now that one training is going to tackle that issue for the rest of time.

This is the beautiful thing about a coaching program where you’re very closely in the trenches with your clients is you’re getting feedback from them. You’re seeing what’s working. You’re seeing where they’re stuck. You’re seeing how things can be a little bit better and you make your program better over time. Your program, there’s never … It’s almost like a continuum to infinity. You’ll get there. There’s no perfect program. There’s no perfect phone. There’s no perfect car. The perfect whatever does not exist yet and it never will because perfection is a pipe dream. It’s like the horizon. We never get there. But what we can create is excellence and better. Your program a year from now I promise you will be better than it is today if you care about your clients and care about growing and making something amazing and it will be ’cause I think you’re that type of person.

Why you can’t wait anymore

I believe once again that you don’t have to have everything ready before you’re ready to market. All you have to know is what is the process you’re going to take your clients through because when you’re on the phone with them, you’re speaking with them, they’re going to be asking, “How does this work?” If you don’t know how to answer that, you can’t enroll them. You need to know how your process is going to work. First, we’re going to do this. We’re going to do this and we’re going to do this. It’s a three-month program. Here’s generally what we’re going to do. You’re going to start here. You’re going to finish here. Here’s the promise. Boom. Right? They don’t care about what’s being said on the third video on the second week. Eventually, they’re going to get there and that video should be there, but for now, just have faith in yourself that you can build out the content as you go.

Now again, for you, I love working under the wire. I love working under pressure. Maybe you’re not the same. If you need more than a week buffer, give yourself a month. I don’t know. Create the first month of content and then start enrolling clients, then get your marketing out there, but please don’t delay. ‘Cause again, think about this. The longer you wait, the longer you suffer. The longer you wait, the longer you’re basically putting off income coming into your business. The longer you wait, the more you’re letting people out there suffer before you can help them.

Think about that. Get out of your head and stop worrying about you and start thinking about other people. What you have is good enough to make a big difference in people’s lives. Even if it’s not organized the way you want it to now, it’s still good enough. I promise you that. Because for most people, what you take for granted as your knowledge and wisdom, they have no idea about. Even if it’s not perfect, it’s going to be powerful enough for them.

Here’s my challenge, my encouragement for you today is whatever deadline you’ve given yourself to get your program going, cut it in half. If you’re like, “Oh, my God, cut it in half. Are you crazy?” Yeah, I am crazy. I am insane and I want to give you a little bit of that insanity because that’s required sometimes. If you’re thinking, “I’m going to take the first three months to get my program dialed in, then I’m going to start marketing it,” no. I want you to do that in a month and then, get your stuff going. Is your program going to be done? I don’t think so, but who cares? It will get done after this first round of clients and then it’s done.

Hopefully, this message resonates with you. Hopefully, if you’re somebody who’s going through this thinking right now, that this gives you a bit more clarity, at least my perspective and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode. Thanks so much for joining me.

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