AP 1220: How Do I Make the Right Offer to My Audience?

AP 1220: How Do I Make the Right Offer to My Audience?

Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to episode 1,220 of AskPat 2.0. You're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur, just like you. And today's interesting because we are talking to another coach. Her name is Julie, and you can find her at goconfidentlycoaching.com. She's actually a product of the pandemic. Pandemic ended her 20-year career job, and she moved on to become an entrepreneur.

Pat Flynn: And we're going to talk about exactly what she's doing now, and some of the issues that are coming up as a result of starting this new journey, and especially when it comes to, because she does have clients, she has multiple offerings, but some of the new offers that she wants to offer don't seem to fit quite right, or maybe not on the surface. I dig deep to try to find exactly what the root of the problem is, and we discover something really amazing. In fact, by the end of this, you're not going to see it because you're just listening, but her smile was so big. You're going to love this transformation.

Pat Flynn: So here she is, this is Julie from Go Confidently Coaching. And you can also listen to her podcast, Casa De Confidence at casadeconfidencepod.com, or wherever you could go find podcasts, wherever you're listening to this. Casa De Confidence. All right, here she is. This is Julie, you're going to love it.

Pat Flynn: Julie, welcome to AskPat. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me today. How are you?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Hi, Pat. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Pat Flynn: This will be super fun. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Well, I am the business and life strategy coach that you need in your life if you're a mid-life woman, looking to start, grow a business and you're not sure where to start and how to be able to scale it. I think that, for me, I left a corporate career after 20 years because of the pandemic, and because I've been listening to you, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: I started a podcast. It's something that I love, but mainly I also wanted to help other women be able to go after their dreams, because as I climbed the corporate ladder a lot of people would say, "Oh my God, you're so confident." But we don't always have it together. We just have to do the work, do the thing, and learn what we don't know, surround ourselves with the right people, the right tools and then be able to continue to just do the work. And even when we don't feel like we're doing progress, if we're consistent, we will.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: But again, I started this because I was left without a job after the pandemic started. I really think I'm in the right place, so thank you again for having me.

Pat Flynn: That's amazing. That wasn't too long ago that all that stuff went down. Tell me a little bit about when that happened, because I'm always very interested. I went through the same thing in '08, right? What was your initial reaction? And how soon until you gained this confidence to now start your own thing?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Sure. I got my coaching certification as a CBT coach, which is cognitive behavioral techniques coach, and I thought, "You know what? In five, 10 years I will leave my company job." I was Chief Innovation Officer for an educational company out of New York City. I live in Connecticut, and I used to commute into the city and that's where I would listen to your podcast and other podcasts. And I thought, "Someday, I'm going to do that. I'm going to leave and start my own thing."

Julie DeLucca-Collins: And then pandemic hit, and we were looking to see how do we pivot? And I got a call, I got a call from the CEO, and all of a sudden I thought, "This totally makes sense. We need to scale down, and we need to have of some of the people who are not necessarily essential." And it hurt because I'd been with the company for a long time. Actually, the founder of the company was my friend, she recruited me from another company. She passed away, and we were doing all we could to continue her legacy.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: And that's, I think, why I didn't leave right away when I knew that I had a bigger dream because I was doing something that I felt was the right thing. And when I got laid off, I thought immediately ... It was weird because I thought, "I know exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to help other people." And there was a certain piece to it, and there was a level of grief too because, obviously, a chapter of my life was ending and I was moving on from something that I was good at, I enjoyed. And I knew that we were helping people, and that's a core value for me is to learn, to grow, to serve. But I also knew that I could do it in different ways.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: And it took me a little bit, I will say, took me a little bit to figure out who I was going to help because just as a coach, sometimes a lot of coaches go through a certification, or you think, "I need to have these qualifications, or the name, or the whatever, and that makes me better at what I do." But it's not until you actually start doing the thing that you actually get better at it. It's not preparing for it. And I would say a good maybe six months I kept trying to figure out who do I serve? How do I serve them? Even though I knew I wanted to help women, I had not really defined that.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: And then, I got an interesting email and I thought, "Ooh, maybe this is for me." And it was an email from you asking if you wanted to join your community for SPI pro. And I thought, "What?" And I thought, "Okay, I'm going to apply. I don't know. I mean, I'm just starting, but this is going to be a great opportunity." Community is so vital in supporting yourself and making sure that you get the right tools, and learning from people who maybe are doing this or can give you the feedback that you need.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: And I joined SPI and I was accepted, and I thought, "Oh my gosh, okay, I need to leverage this environment. I need to be able to just learn and absorb and hopefully gain clarity", which I did. And by the end of 2020, I had created an offer. I knew exactly, I was servicing women who are coaches, consultants, who were just starting their own business and leveraging my background in business and learning how to grow, how to attract, how to create a marketing plan, how to create offers.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: And then, throughout all of that, I kept going and I kept getting clients and I thought, "Okay, this is working." And really refined what I offer. And of course, with new levels, there's new devils. So now I've been moving along and now it's time for me to continue to create an offer that I think that will continue to serve the people and the women who I'm working with.

Pat Flynn: What a story. I mean, there's a book in there, there's a movie, there's all these things happening. That's so incredible. And I love how you use that word refine, right? Because you have to launch before you can refine. If you waited until things were perfect, or you knew exactly what to do, it would be too late, and so I love that. And first of all, thank you for the shout out to SPI Pro, and I love that you're in there, and just the community there is amazing. I do agree with you.

Pat Flynn: So tell me, what level are you at now? And what devils are you facing?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: I decided first that I was going to launch a group coaching program, because I wanted to be able to service more people. And really, initially, my group coaching program was for six weeks, and then I realized, "Wait a minute, that's not enough." Because what happens as you're starting to grow and launch a business and then scale it, there's very distinct areas, and the initial area is, well, you're either dreaming it and building it, and then you're growing it and scaling it.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: And I think that a lot of women, or a lot of individuals really get stuck with maybe doing the work that you're supposed to be doing at scaling, not necessarily in the beginning when you're building it. So, I grew my group coaching to 12 weeks, and then if someone wants to work with me more intensely they can, and that's my one-to-one offer.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Throughout all of this, I also went back and I got a new certification, mainly because I wanted to help myself. And I am my best client. I was certified as a Tiny Habits coach, and I am so big on this because we can't go from not doing it to 100% improvement. We have to do 1% increments. And the whole framework of Tiny Habits is so needed because motivation doesn't exist, right?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: So, my issue is: now that my group coaching is continuing to be full, my offer that I want to give to women, because what I see that they struggle with is I can coach them and teach them, and give them tools or suggestions, and things that can work. But doing the work? They're not doing it because they get caught up in all of the insecurities, or maybe they don't know time management. So, what I decided to do is give them an implementation in a box.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: So, in addition to group coaching, this is sort of like your a la carte menu that you can choose. And I guess what I'm thinking is I don't know necessarily if ... Yes, there is a market, people obviously sell social media management, they sell all these little add-ons, but ultimately I don't want to take my eyes off of helping people and my clients because I am too busy creating an agency that I'm running.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: But I do feel that sometimes having that additional offer can be something that they can benefit, because now they're showing up consistently, now they're doing their social media consistently, they're putting out a blog, or maybe they don't even know how to do some of the tech stuff that we get so caught up in doing.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: So, my goal is, as a former teacher, is I do, we do, you do. So that business in a box teaches them as they're going through my coaching, "Hey, this is an add-on, yes. Do my social media. Do the thing." But I want to make sure that it brings value and it's not, again, diluting my services as a coach.

Pat Flynn: Right. How do you imagine you can ensure that you are not diluting the services that you're currently offering with this new offer?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Well, first of all, I am a firm believer that do what you do best and delegate the rest. So, I have an assistant, and I hire someone who has been phenomenal. And that was the first thing that I did in my business is I brought someone on board because I knew that I needed to pay attention to the things that only I can do.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: So, I want to utilize my assistant, my staff to help me. Also I leverage my relationships with some of the local colleges, and I have interns that I train on marketing and stuff. They need the hours, so they can do some of the work. So, what I've been doing with a couple of clients is testing the concept. And these are clients that are not part of the group coaching; they are part of my one-to-one. So they get this awesome, VIP experience that it's all done for you, and additionally they get time with me for coaching to go through their process, create their strategic plan, implement their plan, and then overcome some of the challenges that they have in the implementation process.

Pat Flynn: Wow, that's great. I mean, you're getting first-hand knowledge from people testing and experimenting with it to then be able to use and package and put it in front of your other clients when that makes sense. So that's great, I love that you're utilizing your team. This will definitely help ensure that you're still showing up to who it is that you're obligated to show up for, and that's ...

Pat Flynn: Okay. So, you have those systems in place. That's fantastic. How are you going to roll this out? And how will you know it's time to do that? How is it going with your one-on-ones? It seems to be working, right?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Actually, one of the women in particular, she's been working with me, she started in group coaching and then said, "Oh my God, I need more of your time." So she's the first person that took advantage of this, and it's been going great.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Obviously, what we're doing in the process right now is we're recording the process, right? Like how do we onboard her? How do we manage the minutiae, things that you need to figure out? So we're still in the process of doing that. I don't think we have 100% all the kinks worked out, but she's seeing traction. She is growing her audience. She's becoming more consistent. So now she doesn't have the pressure of, "What do I write for my blog? Or what do I put on my social media?" Because a lot of that is being done for her.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: So, now that's allowing her to actually spend time on speaking to potential clients, doing continued market research, putting herself out there to speak in podcasts or speaking engagements, so that has been great.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: I had intended to roll it out only to one-to-one clients, but I also see my group coaching clients struggling with this, and I just don't know what to price it at, or if it was something that would put me out of the realm of people wanting to work with me as well.

Pat Flynn: Tell me a little bit more about the implementation in a bo ... What's in there exactly? Because there might be a way to scale it, or have it be one-to-many as well, in which case maybe they don't get as much access or as much of the stuff as a one-on-one client would, but it still fulfills the job.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: And again, for group coaching you're likely going to need it more than one-on-one where you personally can hold a person accountable, where you can literally walk people through something, it's going to be even easier for a person to feel the need to finish or to complete their work, or to finish their incompletes. Versus group coaching oftentimes, you see the group mentality of just everybody's struggling, and so you can help everybody too at the same time.

Pat Flynn: But tell me a little bit more about what is inside of the box?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Again, and this might be to my detriment, I use the prescriptive approach of a teacher in really trying to see where the deficiencies are, and then create a plan. So, for instance, for my one client that we are working very well and things are moving smoothly, what we did is we figured out where's your bandwidth missing?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: She had a basic idea on how to create a marketing plan and a social media strategy and a content calendar, but she was getting all really overwhelmed by that. So then we created the marketing plan, we created the social media content calendar and what social media outlets made sense for her. So, she's working in leadership programs with attorneys, she's not necessarily going to be on TikTok, or she could be on TikTok, right? We all could. But really, what makes more sense? LinkedIn is the first place.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Then how do we create the content that would go out there? And so, we came up with the content calendar, the social media and the blog, and those are some of the add-ons for her. And it's just basically in that marketing realm. Those are the add-ons.

Pat Flynn: And that's specific to her, right? Would it be different for other people?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: That's specific to her. Yeah, so what we did is we really have done ... And one of the things that I do with my clients is I help them define their personal brand and who their avatar is, so that they can then create a message that resonates with the people that they want to speak with, and they want to bring on as clients.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: I have clients also that have brick and mortar, or I have also a client that is launching a product, so it's very different going from one to the next. So, is it just the content calendar and social media posts that we do for them and how often? And yeah, that's all crosstalk

Pat Flynn: That's where I was going. What are the things that are going to be continual patterns between every single person, sort of like baseline foundational minimums? Obviously for the group coaching that wouldn't cost as much because it is a little bit more productized, if you will. And that's kind of what you want, right? That's the whole purpose of doing it in a group is so you can scale up how you serve these people, and it would be through these things that are common with perhaps some instruction, or video, or something to be able to put their own flavor into it.

Pat Flynn: And that's where some of these other things that are unique to every individual could come into play. It might look more like a menu. Here's a menu of items and you have to set that expectation that, "This is for you if you are this. This is for you if you're here." They're kind of all there, but you're not necessarily holding their hand across but it's there. And then again, with implementation, accountability is a big, important factor in that, and that could come in a scalable manner as well.

Pat Flynn: So, to your question of what would you charge for the this, the question I have to bounce back on you would be: what would be the value of this? And what would be the consequence of not doing this or following through for one of your clients? And so, what's the price of the group coaching and the one-on-one, just so we can get some perspective?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Yeah. So, the group coaching is $2,097, and the one-to-one is $5,400. Now the group coaching goes on for 12 weeks and they do get an SOS call with me that is one-to-one. And they can either do a 15-minute SOS call, and most clients tend to bank those, and they make it into a 30-minute every two weeks. And not everybody uses it.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: On the one-to-one, it is $5,400 for six months and they get a one-hour with me. They can also attend the group coaching if they want, if we're covering a topic that is something that they want to refresh on. But in the one-to-one, it is very targeted to what they want to do, and we really spend a lot of times, and their specific needs and issues.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, that's great. I mean, that price anchoring works really well. What are you imagining charging a one-on-one client for the implementation stuff? Or is that baked in?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: So, I was thinking for the one-to-one client it would be an additional cost of ... If we were only doing the content calendar, social media, it would be $300 a month. If they wanted to do a blog, or maybe email sequences or newsletter, then it would be an additional $200. So maybe anywhere between $300 to $500 a month as an add-on, for the one-to-one. I was looking into, I don't have necessarily that many expenses other than the staff, but I wanted to make it doable for the client.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Again, my main concern, and I think that ... I'm sure I'm not unique, and I know that many of my clients, because again I am my avatar in some ways, we struggle with not wanting to, "Oh my gosh, what a ripoff." But I also feel that there's value in something. And if there's some value that I'm bringing to somebody, I know if you're bringing me value, I don't care what you cost. You're going to help me, so I'm willing to pay for that.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: But I also, I don't want to be just a boutique agency that does all of this. I really want people to learn how to be able to do it and empower them to ... If they want to continue to use me, great. But I really want to empower them to take charge and run this for themselves if they need to.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, it's interesting. That thought about like, "Oh my gosh, am I just ripping off people?" Is sometimes a bomb that can explode at any point because it's just so heavy that feeling, and it stops you from putting your best stuff out there because you're worried about this. Is that an actual thought that you have about the stuff that you create?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: So you know what? I've worked through a lot of that process and that though throughout the two years that I've been doing this. I think that in the very beginning I thought, "What do you price yourself at?" And I really thought, it took me a while and I thought, "Julie, you've got to do some competitive research about how other people charge for this and are they willing to?"

Julie DeLucca-Collins: And when I realized that, "Okay, this is what I'm going to charge", I mean, I started my group coaching charging $750, so I know that there's value in what I do. I also know that I'm very good at what I do. I've seen the results for my clients, but I also, I love what I do and I really want to just help people, so where's the balance? And I think that that's where I get stuck too.

Pat Flynn: Okay. Well, I'm glad to hear that we are through those negative feelings, because when you are confident about what you have to offer, the pricing situation doesn't become as heavy, right? And so, based on the numbers that we chatted about already, if it's $300 for social media and content planning for a one-on-one, I mean, it almost feels like it should be the exact same price for anybody and any individual who's doing it through your group stuff because they're getting the same result, right? It just so happens that one person is a one-on-one client and the other people happen to be working into a group.

Pat Flynn: But this almost feels like a separate thing that could benefit anybody.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Yeah.

Pat Flynn: And if you know and are confident, again, like we just talked about, that that money's just going to come back, that time that they would save is going to come back, well then the positioning you want to have is like, "This is a steal at $300. You're robbing me, in fact, because I'm putting the team, the systems together, and I have to charge something. So this $300 is going to help you in so many ways."

Pat Flynn: And then, when you look at that particular offering alone, I mean, there are companies charging thousands for that.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Oh, for sure.

Pat Flynn: Right? So there should be no worry about charging that amount. And if people are like, "Hey, that doesn't make sense to me", then it either is not right for them, first of all, or we need to work on the messaging and the positioning a little bit on your end, so that they understand and can make an informed decision on whether that would make sense for them or not.

Pat Flynn: It's when we sell vaporware that sounds good but doesn't actually do anything that we should worry, and it doesn't sound like that's the case at all because you know that implementing these things will pay itself back in droves later, right?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Oh, for sure. And I think that the other thing that I definitely see is that confidence builds confidence. So, when they start to, "Okay, this is no longer something I'm going to struggle on", then they feel more confident to be able to go and do other stuff.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Now, my other follow-up is: do I then... The more ... So, I said social media, content calendar, the blog, emails, now for every offer do I just add, I don't know, like $200? Because then there's the other byproduct of my business is my husband getting his own thing going, and part of the services that people want are stuff that he offers. So, is that crazy to ... He's my producer, my podcast producer, and he edits podcasts for women who are struggling to do their own editing. And he loves it, he used to be a sound person in college and that's his jam. So again, my fear would be that we're just creating an agency and moving away from the coaching.

Pat Flynn: I think that's just a story you're telling yourself. I mean, on one hand, a person could define that as an agency. Okay. So what? It's an agency that provides the best services and value that you could ever find anywhere else, right? If you want to call it an agency, that's fine, but we're providing value. "I'm going to call it my ... " Whatever it is you want to call it. "We're going to keep this, we're a family here, and it's our family helping yours. And I don't know any other agency that makes it that."

Julie DeLucca-Collins: I love that.

Pat Flynn: This is a unique angle that you could actually take, because you could even say, "Hey, if he's not doing the work you tell me because I'm going to get him." You know? Play with that. I think you could step into that. Why make it a negative? Let's actually spin it and turn it into a positive. That way it feels even more white glove, like, "Hey, my family's going to take care of your family."

Julie DeLucca-Collins: I love that.

Pat Flynn: "My husband's here to edit."

Julie DeLucca-Collins: What a shift in thought. What a shift in thought. You know, it's funny you said that, "That's a story you're telling myself." I say that to myself all the time, so that totally resonates, so thank you.

Pat Flynn: Good. You're welcome. It took us a half hour to get there, but I'm glad we got there.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: That's so good.

Pat Flynn: But yeah, I mean, again, just the change in that story allows for more possibilities to happen, and it allows for more connection to happen, right? Because you could define it as an agency. Okay, what if it's the best agency that ever existed and the one that makes you feel closer than any other one that's out there, right?

Pat Flynn: So, again, it just always comes back to: are you providing value, or are you providing service? And I think it actually is a benefit that your husband is able to help the women that you serve.

Pat Flynn: And here's the big mind shift that I had back in the day with relation to this: you are not upselling, you are up-serving. You are not upselling, you are up-serving. It just so happens that the service requires some money, but I'm not going to sell it to you, I'm going to serve it to you. And if you want it, if you need it, it's here for you and it's going to be the best.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: I think that that is so key, because I think that when we have ingrained values that we really want to continue to have in our business, if we shift our brain. I'm loving this, so thank you. Yeah, for sure.

Pat Flynn: You're welcome.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: And this is so good. This is so good. And I think that it totally makes sense. And my goal is that people can see what the possibilities are if they just are not afraid to say, "Okay, well, I've got to bite the bullet, I've got to do this. And maybe this is not something that I thought I was ready for, but if I'm going to do the thing I need to do this other thing."

Pat Flynn: Right. And as long as they see the value that's there then, like you said, if it's something you need and you know it, then the price isn't actually an issue anymore. So it's in the messaging, it's in the positioning, it's in the story of how this comes up. And when you use your existing clients as success stories to come and share, all these things work together to just benefit that person, and then ultimately the bottom line in the end.

Pat Flynn: So Julie, this has been amazing. Thank you for opening up and for sharing with me. Where can people go to check out your family-like approach to servicing other women out there?

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Absolutely. Well, they can go to goconfidentlycoaching.com, and they can find me on all the socials on JulieDeLuccaCollins. And I would love it if they want to check out the podcast, is Casa De Confidence. And they can listen to Handsome Hot Husband, who is my sidekick in the beginning, and then I do the interviews with amazing women and cool dudes who are going confidently in the direction of their dreams.

Pat Flynn: I love that for a podcast name, by the way. That is so good.

Julie DeLucca-Collins: Well, we are Casa De Collins, so we were brainstorming and we thought, "Oh, okay, we're going to do Casa De Confidence."

Pat Flynn: And we just ended on the fact that this is the casa, like, "You're in my house, let me take care of you." crosstalk

Julie DeLucca-Collins: I love it. Thank you. This has been so cool. You made it all click. Thank you, Pat. You're awesome.

Pat Flynn: Thank you, Julie. I appreciate you.

Pat Flynn: What did I tell you? Another epiphany in this episode, like all the other episodes. I hope that if you haven't done so already you hit subscribe and you leave a review, because I read them all and I love them so much. They help me move forward confidently. And if you want to move forward confidently, you can also check out Julie at goconfidentlycoaching.com. And of course, like I said earlier, listen to her podcast, Casa De Confidence.

Pat Flynn: Thank you so, so much for listening in. I appreciate you. If you want to make sure you get access to other amazing entrepreneurs, we talked about it a little bit because Julie is a member of SPI Pro, head on over to SPI Pro. And if you actually don't qualify, because we don't accept everybody, it is established entrepreneurs who are there, who are helping each other, who are supporting each other, if you need a little bit more help at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey, well, we have something for you there as well.

Pat Flynn: So, go ahead and apply, we'll see if it's the right fit, we'll get to know you a little bit, and we won't let you in unless we know that we can serve you. But if we can't with SPI Pro, we do have something called the SPI Learners Academy, which is another amazing community of beginners and we're there to support you as well. Just head on over to SPI Pro and you can get all the info from there. So again, SPIPro.com.

Pat Flynn: Thank you so much. I appreciate you. And I look forward to serving you next week's episode. Until then, cheers, peace out, and as always: Team Flynn for the win.

Pat Flynn: Thanks for listening to AskPat at AskPat.com. I'm your host, Pat Flynn. Our Senior Producer is Sara Jane Hess. Our Series Producer is David Grabowski. And our Executive Producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. AskPat is a production of SPI Media. We'll catch you in the next session.