SPI 950: How to Run a $10K+ Sold-Out Group Coaching Program

SPI 950: How to Run a $10K+ Sold-Out Group Coaching Program

Liz Wilcox: Okay, finally we have gotten to the podcast, to the meat. The ads are over. I know nobody likes ads, but listen, we gotta keep the lights on around here somehow. Speaking of keeping the lights on, if you are tired of, you know, giving away time for scraps, if you are tired of, you know, that feeling of just not having enough money and knowing, knowing you are an expert, knowing that you have something to give, that you are a true provider of service, you are a true coach, this is the episode for you.

I am so excited to be introducing John Meese. This guy, not only does he have five kids, not only does he live in Puerto Rico, he is really good at playing the coaching game, at being an amazing service provider, somebody who takes clients and helps people get results. So I want you to listen in because this episode is giving a lot of simple and effective and dare I say even fun strategies on how to create an amazing group coaching program that gets you booked and busy, baby.

So let’s listen in.

All right, we’re recording, we’re recording. And today I am so excited and also so, so nervous. Y’all, this is my very first solo interview for the SPI podcast, and of course I had to bring in a friend so that I wouldn’t feel so alone, so I’m just gonna welcome in the one and only John Meese.

Hey, hey.

John Meese: Liz, thank you so much for bringing me on as a guest, and I’m honored. I didn’t actually know when we scheduled this that I was gonna be the first guest of just me and Liz, and so unfortunately Pat’s the one who’s actually feeling the FOMO right now, I’m sure, because I’m sure he’d love to be here, too.

Liz Wilcox: I’m sure. And I have to tell you guys a little behind the scenes. I saw this interview, we’re recording this in August, but of course this is going to be put on in a, in a month or two, and I, I told my assistant Patricia, I was like, “I’m not ready, I’m not ready. Let’s reschedule, let’s reschedule.” And she said, “We’re not gonna reschedule. You’re fine, just go for it.” And so, you know, I’m, I’m sweating all around right now, and it’s, it’s definitely not because I live in Florida.

John Meese: Well, hopefully we can have a good, useful conversation for everybody, and if nothing else, you and I will have a good time, and hopefully that’ll… You can now take off those nerves and you won’t have to take that into the next interview.

Liz Wilcox: Yes, okay. So let’s get into it. First and foremost, John, introduce yourself just really quickly because I’m actually, I’m nervous but I’m excited about this because I’m trying to put the I back in SPI. I wanna help people make a real income online, and that’s what John does. So introduce yourself, and then we’ll get into the questions.

John Meese: Yeah, so I actually started learning about building an online business 12, 13 years ago from Smart Passive Income, so it’s kind of… It’s great to come back around here. But I, uh… What I do is I help emerging authorities sell your smarts without losing your soul or your Saturdays. And so that, my company’s called Sell Your Smarts.

I really committed years ago to realizing that like so many people in this space who are really genuinely trying to make it a better place by teaching online weren’t making enough income. And so I saw so many people just starting and then shutting down their businesses, and it just broke my heart. And I myself, you know, I have four kids.

The fifth… Well, the fifth will be born by the time this interview comes out, ’cause the due date was yesterday, so any day now. And so we’re very excited about that. So those kids like to eat, right? And so I, like, I mean, I like to teach, I like to come on podcasts, and I like to talk to you, Liz, and share what, you know, my new books with people as well.

But mainly my kids like to eat, and so income is such a critical part of this. That’s why my business is called Sell Your Smarts. It’s why my new book is called Sold Out Coach, because I really just think that if we can get clear on that part of getting you well-paid, then you’re the good guys and gals of the internet.

You’re gonna help people become wiser along the way.

Liz Wilcox: Okay. I love this, because I always tell my students when they ask me about selling and feeling salesy, I’m like, “Okay, but do you have a refrigerator, and how packed is it right now?” Because these grocery bills are too dang high. So I love that you’re, you know, also relating things to the stomach, because at the end of the day- Yes, that’s what it’s all about. And I know right now you’ve got this awesome new book out, Sold Out Coach, and you’re really recommending group coaching nowadays. So talk to us about, well, what the heck is group coaching versus one-on-one, maybe some misconceptions, and why is it, uh, so hot right now?

John Meese: Yes. So I should say I got into group coaching last, and so I started by getting into, like, selling online courses, because that’s the dream, and then I got into building…

You know, and I got a– I had an amazing opportunity to go behind the scenes with a guy named Michael Hyatt and run a membership site called Platform University, and then I helped a lot of people build, like, multimillion-dollar membership sites. So I did the courses and the membership sites thing, and then people kept telling me about group coaching, but I didn’t really take it seriously.

And then I, I wish I started there. Because what I discovered is that with group coaching, you can serve five or 10 clients at a time. Typically, these are your superfans who are paying to spend extra time with you and learn from you. You can have a dramatic, life-changing impact on them, which that’s what it’s all about, I mean, other than filling the fridge, is, like, helping people actually change their lives, right, to become healthier, wealthier or happier.

And so what I discovered was with the group coaching program, it’s the simplest way that I’ve found to be able to earn good money from doing good work and helping people online, and you can do it with a tiny audience. I’ve had clients with zero email list earn 10,000 or $20,000 from their first group coaching program.

I’ve had clients with just 2,000 email subscribers earn more than a million dollars a year from group coaching, right? So this is something where, like, this is where you’re changing lives and you’re getting paid well. So that’s, that’s why I love group coaching, is ’cause it just, it opens the world where once you buy back your time, you’re funding your lifestyle from your group coaching program.

Well, now you can go create YouTube Shorts or courses or memberships from a place of abundance without having to worry about your next TikTok going viral to pay your mortgage, right? ‘Cause we gotta, we gotta actually to fund the lifestyle.

Liz Wilcox: Yeah, listen, guys, I just recently realized I could monetize my Facebook and the way that I have been playing with pennies over there.

I’d like… I– In the last 28 days, I made $11.08, and I got my first paycheck from it, you know, paycheck, quote, unquote. And I posted it online. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know why, but I’m so excited.” But obviously, group programs and group coaching is so much more lucrative, and a lot of us out there are chasing those pennies.

“Oh my gosh, Facebook sent me money. You know, I’m a genius.” But really, you know, if you want to work from that abundance, we’ve got to get off of social media. And you said something that was really interesting to me that I wanna go back to. You said, “I wish I would’ve started with group coaching.” What was that moment or that story that made you start taking it seriously versus the one-on-one or the courses that you were doing?

John Meese: Yeah. I mean, I think for me it comes down to the math at the end of the day. It seems so silly in hindsight. So to make $10,000 from an online course, like Liz, what’s like a typical price you’d recommend for an online course?

Liz Wilcox: Um, I mean, anywhere from 100 to 500, some 1,000 if you’re like really, really a pro.

John Meese: Yeah. Well, let’s just say it’s 100, right? So that means that to make $10,000 from a $100 online course, you have to sell 100 of them, right? I mean, which, which sounds like, like that’s a lot, right? That’s actually a lot of work, especially when you’re just getting started. To do that from a membership site where you’re making 20 or $50 a month, I mean, you’ll have to pull out your calculator and do the math, but it’s a lot.

You need a lot of customers. So when you’re starting your business, like right now at this exact moment, every single one of you listening to this, at this exact same moment, you have the smallest audience you will ever have, because from here on you’re gonna keep growing. Why would you start your business with a product that requires the most number of customers to be financially successful, right?

Like a $17 ebook, $100 course, like that requires a ton of customers. A group coaching program, you need five clients to make $10,000 from your first cohort. Five clients paying you $2,000. That’s like the generally the playbook I recommend people start. Now, eventually you can actually make $10,000 per client if you develop a good enough program.

But even when you get started, it’s like literally you can count them on one hand, assuming you have all your fingers, five clients, right? That’s all we’re talking about here. And so once I realized that, I realized I was doing it all backwards, ’cause I was trying to build my business off of $47 online courses, $347 online courses, $47 a month membership sites, $70 eBooks, affiliate income here and there, and I realized that I was doing it the hard way, that…

And here’s the thing too, I was teaching into the void, right? ‘Cause I was creating a course and putting it out there and hoping people were watching it and putting it into practice. But if you’ve ever tried to sell an online course, you know that’s only half the battle. Getting people to actually watch the course and do the work is the second half of this thankless work.

But when you’re running a group coaching program, you teach people live, and it typically it’s your superfans who pay for it. And so these are people who are so grateful because you’re guiding them through a major change in their life. And because of that, you get to look into their eyes and hear from them the wins.

Now all of a sudden, when you go write the book, when you go create the group, create the course, you’re creating it based on all of that experience. So my new book is my fourth book. It’s called Sold-Out Coach: Exactly How to Earn $10,000 More per Month Group Coaching 90 Minutes per Week. But the book was actually easy to write because I’ve been coaching it for five years.

And so every chapter is filled with all of these real life stories and examples. It’s not teaching theory, right? It’s so, it’s essentially sharing my notes from the field of coaching. And so that’s what I want for you, is to have a way where you essentially get paid to create your best content, your best courses, your best books, your best future resources by working with your superfans in a small group.

Liz Wilcox: Okay. So I love that you mentioned the thing about, you know, the clients are doing the work. I always say that customers, or in this case, clients, create community. A lot of people will try to go out and build something like John or Liz or Pat, right? And then think, “Oh, well people will just pay me,” you know?

Like, “People will just be happy to pay me.” But really, I think it’s the other way around, and this is what John is teaching now of, you know, get the clients. They’re gonna put in the work. Why? Because they paid for it, right? They’re gonna see the results, and then they’re gonna go out and tell their friends, right?

And so that’s what creates the community. That’s what creates superfans. So talk to us about those first five clients. What are some ways we can go about that? ‘Cause I know you don’t often spend a lot of time on social media, and our audience spends a whole heck of a lot of time on social media. And so what are you doing instead to find those clients?

John Meese: Yeah. So the first thing is you have to get clear on what I call your bullseye target client. So we’ve all probably heard of some version of, like, a target client. Maybe you call it, like, an avatar or a USP or an ICP or whatever you wanna call it. But when you’re creating this, you’re serving this target client, this is someone who you built your business around.

Like, that’s a normal thing. But … And actually, I’m curious real quick, Liz, in sort of SPI is there, like, an official term you guys use to describe what I’m talking about, like your avatar or something like that?

Liz Wilcox: We use ICP, like, uh-

John Meese: Okay, great …

Liz Wilcox: Whatever that stands for.

John Meese: Yeah. I think it’s, uh- Ideal client-

Liz Wilcox: What is it?

Ideal customer persona or something … profile. Yeah.

John Meese: Yeah. Something like that.

Liz Wilcox: Avatar.

John Meese: So that’s fine.

Liz Wilcox: Whatever.

John Meese: Yeah. That, that’s fine. But if you think about it as, like, a target client, well, a target, if you’re playing darts or archery, right, has these, like, layers. There’s these rings, and not every spot on the target is worth the same points.

The closer you are to the bullseye, the higher the value. And the same thing goes when you’re creating a good coaching program. The first thing you have to get clear on is if you look at your target client as a group, you go, “Okay, who are those bullseye target clients, where right now I can make the most dramatic impact on their life?”

Uh, right away I think of Marie Berwald, who’s a … She’s in my Authority Guild mem- Mastermind, and, and she’s got a sold-out group coaching program where her business as a whole is called Birth Bliss. So her target client as a whole are, like, women who are learning about, like, either getting pregnant or, like, managing their pregnancy and having a healthy birth.

But she developed a $3,000 group coaching program where she helps women who are in the first trimester of pregnancy dealing with debilitating nausea. And so it’s so specific. It’s like ver- that’s the bullseye, right? So her whole business does serve, like, Birth Bliss as a whole, but then her group coaching program is bye bye morning sickness, and it’s using, like, really industry-leading research on how to make a couple changes to your diet and habits that just eliminate debilitating morning sickness to allow you to get your life back.

That is a program people are happy to pay for because right now they’re suffering, right? And so you have to get clear on that bullseye part first, ’cause they … sometimes people skip that. They skip the fact that, like, you have to make sure you’re solving a problem that is causing people real pain or discomfort.

It’s not usually physically, physical discomfort like what I just mentioned. Sometimes it’s about improving so- your relationships or accru- or improving your ph- your health or improving your wealth, but that’s the first step. Once you get clear on that, then it’s just a question of where are those people.

My favorite way to start a group program is to go to an existing email list. So if you do have an email list, even if it’s just 100 subscribers, this strategy works from 100 email subscribers to 100,000 email subscribers, is you just send a simple invitation to that list that does not say anything about your product.

So you’re not saying, “Hey, join my group coaching program. I have a new group coaching program,” ’cause honestly, it’s not about you. It’s about them. It’s you saying, “Hey, would you like help to solve this problem?” And you use that as a conversation starter to get people to say yes. And that’s honestly the start, but I call that a hand-raiser.

That’s the start of the process that I teach to really serve to sell, which is the title of another book of mine. To serve to sell, to bring people into your group coaching program.

Liz Wilcox: Okay. So I wanna talk about the hand-raiser for a second because, John, in my past life, my personal brand, we talked a lot about this email o- on a podcast episode.

And y’all, I geek out over email. I’d love for you to explain more about the hand-raiser, and then I wanna go into how… Was your client’s name Maria? Is that who you were talking about? I wanna go into- No,

John Meese: this is, this is Marie. Yeah.

Liz Wilcox: Marie, excuse me. I, I’m sure she gets that all the time.

John Meese: That’s okay.

Liz Wilcox: I would love to know, like, how we got to the $3,000 price.

But first, talk about the hand-raiser email.

John Meese: Yeah. Hand-raiser, for me, a hand-raiser is a category. It’s an email that doesn’t have a link. There’s no… The only call to action is to reply. That’s the first thing. So think about it like you’re talking to an audience, like literally if you’re on stage, and if you’re looking at an audience of a few hundred people, which, on stage, that would be a huge audience, right?

If you’re talking to a few hundred people in a room. And you know that you’re looking for just five people who are your bullseye to require in that audience. You would probably ask a question and say, “Hey, are you by any chance a dentist in Milwaukee that’s looking to grow your team this year? Raise your hand.”

Right? Very specific here. They raise their hand. You say, “Great. Let’s have a sidebar conversation over here. We don’t need to bother everybody in the audience, right? Let’s have a sidebar conversation, and then we’ll talk about how I can help you reach your goal.” We just take the same strategy to email.

It’s just to say it’s a bit of a pattern interrupt, right? So ideally, you’re sending this email. There’s no design or headers. It looks very personal. It’s a very plain text email. And amongst hand-raisers, there’s a lot of different templates, and there’s a bunch actually in the book Sold Out Coach, but there’s a bunch of templates for the types of hand-raisers you can send.

My favorite one to start with is actually called the Wanna 10X hand-raiser, and that comes from the fact that your group coaching program needs to be built around a, a clear 10X promise. Or it, it was really just a clear promise of transformation. The Wanna 10X hand-raiser is the shortest and simplest one.

The subject line says, “Quick question,” and the email says, “Would you like to 10X promise- dash your name.” So this would be like, Liz, for example, if you had a program for smart passive income, and it was something like if you… The email would say something like this: “Quick question. Would you like to…” Well, I mean, earn smart passive income is probably an easy version of this, but some version of which, would you like to earn $5,000 a month in your sleep- dash Liz.

Right? So it’s like, it’s a little bit of a question. Like, it’s like, well, I don’t know enough information, but I think I want that, right? And I kind of picked that as a random promise. That might not actually be the right promise for you. But I’ve g- but some people, like Sean Blanc as an example, where he sent this email.

It says, “Quick question. Would you like to run your full-time business working part-time hours? Dash Sean.” Would you like to run your full-time business working part-time hours, right? Mine says, “Would you like to earn $10,000 per month group coaching 90 minutes per week?” Right? Mike Vardy says, “Would you like to accomplish meaningful work without fighting your body clock?”

And these simple invitations, Mike Pacchione, his says, uh, “Would you like to create an unforgettable signature talk that earns instant trust with any audience?” So it’s all focused on the promise, not the product, right? So when someone says yes, that just starts the sales process, right? That doesn’t close the whole thing.

But it allows you to have a conversation with somebody. Just say, “Amazing. Tell me more about yourself and your current situation.” And then from there, “Wonderful. I’d love to learn more about your goals to see if or how I can help. Would you like to schedule a free coaching call with me?” And that free coaching call use…

I have a, my previous book is called Serve to Sell, and I, this actually was inspired by Pat Flynn. You talked a long time ago about how you used to do these, uh, these, these regular audi calls with audience members where he would do like a free call with them just to get to know them, and I love that idea, but I, uh, wanted to get paid for it.

So I learned how to structure these free coaching calls in such a way so that 100% of the time the potential customer walks away going, “Wow, that was useful.” 100% of the time you walk away going, “I just got a ton of market research.” And about half the time you walk away with a few thousand dollars in your pocket, right?

So it’s a pretty good use of your time and energy. So that’s the Serve call method, and that’s what that free coaching call is. But that’s essentially like the whole sales process in a nutshell. It’s like you send a hand-raiser, you reply, invite them on a Serve call, enroll them into your programs. You don’t need social media. You don’t need paid ads. You don’t even need a landing page or a funnel or a webinar, any of that. In fact, a lot of times that stuff gets in the way.

Liz Wilcox: Yes, let’s… Okay, rewind that 30 seconds. A lot of the times that stuff gets in the way. I say it with so much love, please, please, please focus on your wins, what’s important now, and a lot of times, just like John said, what’s important now is making the money so that you can actually serve, right?

So you can actually, you know, feed your family and, you know, do the work that you love and not sacrifice your Saturdays because, you know, you, you have a bajillion things on your to-do list. So I love this 10X promise. I, in my head I’m, I’m wrapping, I’m wrapping my head around it, and I’m thinking, because when I took over SPI, Pat was doing a higher ticket, like, group coaching.

And y’all, I am low ticket for life, and I was like, “No, we’re not doing that. We’re not…” It was called the Fast Track. I said, “We’re not doing that. We don’t… You know, tell Pat, you know, he’s off the hook for that. I’m not, I’m not gonna do it again.” But now I’m like, “I gotta call Pat when we get off the…” That was the sound of my phone dropping ’cause I picked it up.

I’m, I’m thinking, yeah, this could actually be really fun when I think about it from the perspective of serving my people, giving them that 10X, ’cause I, my definition of success is that you listening become more successful than me, so why wouldn’t I wanna do a group coaching program? I’m getting excited.

I’m getting excited, so.

John Meese: Amen. Amen.

Liz Wilcox: Yeah. Okay. John’s inspired me. If he’s inspired you, uh, leave a review. We, we would love to hear it. So let’s go back to Marie, not Maria, and let’s talk about how she landed on that $3,000 price. What do you, what are your suggestions for pricing?

John Meese: Yeah. The reality is this is where a lot of people get so stuck, is like they get so stuck on pricing.

And they w- I wish I could tell you there’s a magic formula, but actually I kinda love that there isn’t because it means, like, there’s a lot of things you can do here. I have clients who charge anywhere from $1,000 to $30,000 for group coaching programs. Here’s what I recommend. Out of the gate, I recommend almost always, so we’re just gonna say always, start with five clients paying you $2,000, right?

So if you can get five clients to pay you $2,000 and you’re, you are now a sold-out coach, you have a sold-out group coaching program. Start there. Gradually raise the number of people in your program and the price with each cohort, right? So when I’m saying five clients paying $2,000, typically they’re joining like a 60-day accelerator program where they’re meeting with you for 90 minutes a week for just a short period of time, right?

Like, 60 days is kind of what I’m seeing right now. Some people love 90-day programs. That’s also fine. I’ve just seen lately 60-day programs seem to be selling better, I think, because the idea is, like, if it’s, if I, if you can help someone accomplish their goals in 60 days instead of 90, don’t just tack on an extra 30 just ’cause, right?

Like, their goal is how long does it take for you to help them accomplish a, a big goal in their life. So start with five clients at $2,000 and then from there gradually move it up. Now, usually what I recommend is that if you can sell five clients at $2,000 really quickly, then actually open up five more spots in the exact same cohort, right?

So now it’s going to from five to 10 people, and say, “Hey, we’re opening up five more spots but at $3,000.” Right? And this allows you to kinda stair-step into that. So that first group, you can actually earn $25,000 from your very first cohort if you do five clients at two and five clients at 3,000, right?

And then from there, ag- then now it’s like the next cohort, maybe you’re gonna open that up from the beginning with 10 spots, uh, but start at $3,000. Let the first five people join for $3,000 and then go to 4,000. The reality is some people love… Like, I have a client right now who’s, like, on her sixth cohort, and she feels really comfortable at that $3,000 price point, and so she’s, like, kept it there.

And I’m like, that’s fine. Like, reality is, like, the key is as part of a sold-out coach, part of this is, like, this underused word enough. It’s a really important word we don’t use enough, right? Ironically. Which is like what’s the enough number that you need to make? Because once you get clear on that number, like, the, the goal is to have the group coaching program be sold out, so you’re not trying to scale it infinitely.

You’re trying to get to the point where it funds your lifestyle so you can do the other stuff. So I will say many of my clients, they go from 2,000 to 3,000 and then 4,000 and then 5,000. A lot of people stop at $5,000. That, that’s like, I mean, a lot of industries, that’s sort of like the sweet spot where it takes a decent amount of effort to get someone enrolled at that price point, but not an unreasonable amount of effort.

If you’re helping people make money though or, or grow their wealth- Then typically that means you’re gonna have a smaller client, but potential customer base, um, of people who are seriously ready to invest in growing their, their wealth. But you could charge premium. So most of my clients who are helping like entrepreneurs or business owners, they’re charging ten thousand.

But even then they actually start at two and they go up gradually with each cohort. So you’re not just like throwing a dart and like randomly picking a price point. You’re going, you’re testing the market to see, okay, I sold five at two. Let me see if I can sell five at three. Great, I sold five at three.

Let me go from there. And so you build confidence as you go because it’s not– The reality is like even if I could tell you right now that your program is worth ten thousand dollars, you have to get comfortable saying that price with a straight face, and that takes practice and iteration, right? Because that’s a huge part of it.

If you don’t believe your program’s worth ten thousand dollars, no one’s gonna pay that. So don’t start there, right? But anything less than two thousand, you’re… What, what happens is I see this all the time, people are like, “Ah, I’m gonna start at five hundred.” Like well, what happens is it’s not premium enough for people to really make it a priority and make a dramatic change in their life.

So someone will sell a group coaching program for five hundred dollars, and then they’ll, they’ll complain by week three, people aren’t showing up to group coaching calls ’cause they got busy. It’s like well yeah, but if you pay, if you pay ten thousand dollars for a group coaching program, um, you’re gonna find time for it, right?

Like that’s something that you’re gonna pay serious attention to. And so when people pay attention– When people pay a premium, they pay attention. So that’s where that price point comes from.

Liz Wilcox: You mentioned it takes effort to get these people enrolled, right? Can we talk a little bit about that effort? I know you mentioned the hand-raiser strategy, but what are the other ways? Like, maybe do I have to get on sales calls? Do I need to go cold pitch? Like, what are some of those efforts that I need to put into to, to start my group coaching program?

John Meese: I’m so glad you asked this because there’s kind of a whole category-defining principle for selling a group coaching program which affects your whole business, which is you’re trying to establish yourself as an authority. What you’re building is an authority business where you’re a trusted guide that people can learn from, right?

And so when you’re building an authority business, you know, it can help. Once you’re a sold-out coach, that can help your authority dramatically because as soon as you’re sold out, people lean in and they’re like, “Wait, what’s this? I wanna learn more.” But I often compare it to an experienced heart surgeon.

Like, imagine you’re like in a well-sought-after famous heart surgeon, a clear authority in heart surgery. If that heart surgeon is hitting you up in the DMs, cold pitching you a quadruple bypass, you don’t trust him, right? If you– If someone knocks on your door and you open the door and they say, “Hey, I got an opening for surgery on Friday, what do you think?

You want a pacemaker?” You’re gonna run or close the door and call the cops, right? So the reality is like, I think sometimes we think of these, all, all these tactics, we kind of lump, lump them all together, but it’s actually really important to get clear on like, as an authority, you need to create environments where people are reaching out to you, and you are in a position of authority, so they can trust you as a guide.

And so if that same heart surgeon, what that means is like one thing you can do, of course, if you have your own email list, always start there. If you have your own email list, always start there. It’s just something as simple as reaching out to them and saying, “Hey, would you like help to do this thing?”

Right? And there’s a lot of different ways you could do that with hand-raisers, but even then, we’re not saying click here to go look at a sales page. I wanna make sure it’s super clear. We’re saying, “Okay, well, let’s invite you into a consultation.” Even then, it’s not a sales call, right? Like, if you go book an appointment with a heart surgeon, you don’t think of that as a sales call, even though it may be one of the most expensive transactions of your life.

You think of that as a consultation to see what do you need and can they help, right? And so that’s what a serve call is, is a consultative meeting to meet to see if someone’s a good fit for your program, see what their goals are, see how you can help them, and then ultimately to make a recommendation. So it, it does sell people into your program, and, you know, your goal in this is to kinda like make the effort, to put some boundaries around the effort.

The absolute simplest version of launching a group coaching program is send a hand-raiser to a hundred email subscribers that are warm, that are engaged. From there, try to get ten serve calls in your calendar. And from those ten serve calls, close five sales into your group coaching program. Right? That is the simplest way to start.

That playbook works over and over and over again. Now- Beyond that, there are other things you can do to sell, but honestly, I just recommend, like, as much as possible, you’re trying to close the gap between yourself and your target client. A lot of smart passive income stuff, not saying SPI specifically, but a lot of, like, building online businesses is focused on, even if it’s not intentionally called this, it’s about creating a gap between you and your customer, where you want them to, like, read the email, watch the video, click the link, read the page, and buy your product without ever talking to you.

Because if you had to talk to every single person and convince them to buy a $17 ebook, you would just, like, you would just go broke so fast or burn out. So that makes sense, right? But when you’re selling a program that’s $2,000 or $5,000 or $10,000, your goal instead is actually to close the gap between yourself and your bullseye target client.

And so to identify who in your audience is that bullseye target client, and then invite them to a, a personal conversation with you. At this point in my business, now where I’m on cohort maybe 25, I think, in my program, most people, I… Actually, what I do is I invite them to, to take a quiz or assessment. And so when they take that quiz or an assessment, then on behind the scenes, I’m calculating, okay, are they my bullseye target client, or are they not quite?

If they’re not quite, I’m sending them somewhere, some sort of free resource. But if they are my bullseye target client, I’m inviting them onto a coaching call. I actually have a… If I could, if it’s useful, I could share, like, I do have a quiz people could take a look at. Would that be useful to share?

Liz Wilcox: Heck yeah.

We’ll put that in the show notes for sure. Quizzes are so hot right now. Everybody wants to know about quizzes , so I would love, uh, for you guys to check out John’s quiz, for sure.

John Meese: Yeah, amazing.

Liz Wilcox: Oh, I was gonna ask you, because you keep talking about getting people on this consultation, and I love that, but I, I just hear the naysayers.

I can hear them. John, can you hear them? And I know, you know, for my program, there are so many service providers out there, and they’re always telling me, “Liz, you know, I’ve tried your emails, and I’ve just… I can’t get anybody on a call.” So, like, what are some reasons that might be, and how can we turn the tide for them?

John Meese: Great question. I never link to book a call publicly. Like, you always have to jump through a couple hoops or pass a couple, you know, boundaries to do that. And I think that’s actually really important because it, it communicates that my time is valuable. So when people have like, sometimes people have like in their emails signature they’re like, “Book a call with me,” and like to like everybody they ever talk to.

And it’s like, well, what that communicates is that your time is not very valuable to you because you’re gonna give it away freely for any reason. And so when you’re an authority, like again, like if a, if a heart surgeon tells you like, “Oh yeah, I’m free all the time, anytime,” you know, it’s like that’s, that’s actually kind of a red flag, right?

So we do want there to be a little bit of, of a boundary people have to come, to come to. But the reason why I love starting with a hand-raiser is because we get clear on like, are people replying to the hand-raiser? ‘Cause that’s the first test. Do they want the promise? ‘Cause you’re saying g- especially that first hand-raiser, the quick question hand-raiser, you’re just saying, “Do you want this promise?”

If they don’t reply to that, that means you’re probably off somewhere in the promise itself. If they do reply to that and now they’re not booking a call with you, I mean, that’s a different problem. But I think sometimes people lump that all together, and it’s like they’re just saying, “I can’t book a call.”

It’s like, well, the first question is do they desire the promise that you have put in front of them? If not, it means either you promised the wrong thing or you promised it to the wrong audience, right? So the first step is like do they actually just, do they say, “Yes, I want that”? And that, it kind of keeps it more, keeps out the experimental variables a little bit.

So then the second question is like, okay, are they replying to that to then book a call with you? But usually if they’re saying yes to that first email, then most people that you follow up with from there are gonna book a call with you as long as you position it as value to them. So the way I love to do that is, is after I learn a bit about somebody to say, “Would you like to schedule a coaching call so I can learn more about your goals to see if or how I can help?”

So I’m making it really clear this is about them. I wanna learn more about their goals to see if or how I can help. So if you think really hard about that, like if or how you can help, oh, okay, so there is some sort of like program or offer probably in there, but it’s really about their goals, learning about their goals.

And so as long as you make it s- focused on them, great. If I say, if you’re saying like, “Hey guys, click here to schedule a sales call with me,” it’s like, no, I don’t wanna, I don’t want, I, I don’t wanna schedule a sales call with anybody. That sounds like a horrible way to spend my Tuesday.

Liz Wilcox: Right.

John Meese: Yeah.

Liz Wilcox: Okay. I love this, and I had written that down earlier you said, like when you were giving the, the heart surgeon metaphor, like what do you need and can I help?

Like, not even how I can help, but can I help, right? It just… I teach something called the super signature, and it’s like a, “PS, when you’re ready, here are ways I can help you,” and it, you know, maybe it links out to the podcast, the group program wait list, whatever, right? And it’s just this sort of lighthearted openness of what John just said, so ver- very similar.

I love that. So if we’re gonna recap what John said, to me, it was, you know, put those boundaries in place so people know you’re an expert, right? I don’t wanna buy, you know, one-on-one coaching or group from someone, like John said, who’s always available, right? And so, yeah, having that quiz, that hand raiser, even, you know, an, a few email exchanges back and forth before saying, “Hey, yeah, let’s get on a call and see if I can even help you,” right?

To learn more about what you need. I love that so, so much. So let’s talk about the group program itself As a coach, I might, you know, maybe I took a course, or, you know, I’ve been doing it a while, and I know what my one-on-one looks like, but maybe I’m unsure of how to take that one-on-one and put it into a group other than there’s just a lot of people on a call at once.

Like, what are some of the key differences there?

John Meese: I’m glad you asked, because a lot of people do think group coaching is just maybe a more efficient way to, like, just, like, slap together all of your clients in one meeting and save time. But actually, I personally believe group coaching is better than one-on-one coaching, and part of that’s because it, it…

If you put five or ten people or twelve people in a group and you’re leading that group, the first thing you have to do is you have to define a shared goal. And so thankfully, the 10X promise is a marketing and sales tool, but it’s also a focusing function for the group coaching program. ‘Cause if I’m telling you, like, “Hey, we’re gonna help you earn $10,000 per month group coaching 90 minutes per week,” well, now guess what?

My whole curriculum has to be helping you earn $10,000 per month group coaching 90 minutes per week. So that promise actually helps create the, the curriculum. When you’re doing one-on-one coaching, you can kinda personalize what you’re teaching to each person you meet with. You can focus on some things and other things.

When you’re teaching a group, you have to have a shared goal that everyone is focused on and a clear starting point and end point, right? So what that does is it creates a sense of, like, positive peer pressure where people are kinda making progress together, and they’re encouraging each other. They see that the progress that the people are making.

But functionally, how I recommend teaching that is step one is really to make sure that you don’t overproduce the program before you sell it. Because the reality is, if you don’t have clients, you don’t have a program. Sometimes people come to me, and they said, “Okay, I just spent the last six months creating this 12-month perfect group coaching program.

I’ve got slide decks for all 12 months of my program, and I’ve got a whole sales page. I think I’m ready to start selling it.” And I’m like, “Well, the problem is, probably what’s gonna happen is really quickly you’re gonna find during the sales process that what people want is not what you made. And now all of a sudden you have so much sunk cost that it’s gonna be hard to change that.”

So instead, what I recommend is you start by if you’re doing a 60-day program, for example, it’s 90 minutes a week, okay, well, week one and week eight are gonna be orientation and graduation, right? So they’re gonna be having a heavier focus on, like, an orientation, telling people, like, here’s what to expect and helping people get to know and connect with each other, and graduation’s gonna be more focused on capturing their total takeaways.

And in between, you’ve got six workshops. So really, I’d take those six workshops, and if you’re doing 90 minutes, what I recommend is that the first 15 minutes is where you’re asking people to share their win of the week, which is a great way to set the tone but also get people to connect with each other ’cause they say they’re sharing, they’re celebrating their progress.

The last 15 minutes of the call, you’re gonna ask people to share what their most useful takeaway was from that day’s workshop, which means you’re also ending with this recap that’s not from you. It’s not you saying, “Here’s what we covered.” They’re saying, “Here’s what I learned.” And so they’re also con- learning from each other, and they’re ending on positivity.

And in between, you have about 60 minutes. So what I typically recommend there is you start by have– planning on 30 minutes of training and 30 minutes of coaching. But that is a wet clay model that you can mold a little bit, so you don’t feel, don’t feel like that’s set in stone. But when I s- I differentiate between training and coaching, as training is teaching a universal truth and coaching is personalizing it to the people in front of you.

So that might mean that you have a training where you’re spending 30 minutes going, “Here’s what a hand-raiser is. Here’s how hand-raisers work. Here’s an example of some hand-raisers. Here’s a swipe file. Here’s a case study.” And then now what we’re gonna do is out of our 30 minutes of coaching, we’re gonna spend 10 minutes, a timed exercise where you’re gonna go write a hand-raiser using a template I give you, and then you’re gonna spend the other 20 minutes sharing your examples to get live feedback in front of the group, right?

And so that would be an example of a real workshop where it really just means 15, 30, 30, 15. Like 15 minutes wins, 30 minutes training, 30 minutes coaching, 15 minutes takeaways. So simple. You can just outline that in a Google Doc or a Notion page.

Liz Wilcox: Say that again. And each workshop is one. Say that again.

Yeah. John’s getting excited. He’s talking fast. I know you’re probably walking your dog. Thank you. You’re doing the dishes. ‘Cause y’all, I’m taking notes, and so I’m like, 30 what? Like, say, say that one more time- Yes … this is really good. 30-

John Meese: Okay,

Liz Wilcox: thank you … the, the framework of that call, yeah.

John Meese: 15 minutes of wins.

Liz Wilcox: Okay.

John Meese: 30 minutes of training.

Liz Wilcox: Mm-hmm.

John Meese: 30 minutes of coaching.

Liz Wilcox: Got it.

John Meese: 15 minutes of takeaways.

Liz Wilcox: And do you see how he is literally just teaching that universal truth right now? Y’all, he is a pro. He’s got it down pat. Thank you. I love this so, so much. Did you have any… I know I interrupted your thought, so I wanna-

John Meese: You’re good

Liz Wilcox: Let you finish it if y- if you’ve got something there.

John Meese: Thank you. I, uh, when I get on a roll, I, that’s when I just need that. So thank you, Liz, I appreciate it. I get excited about this stuff because I think about how so many people tell me going into their first workshop. I just had a client, Russell Nolte, he just reported back.

He said, “I just taught my first workshop.” And he said, “I was so overwhelmed going into it thinking, John says I don’t need to bring a 60-minute slide deck. What, how, how is this gonna go?” But he came back saying it was incredible to see how much rapid fire coaching is built in there when you have a group of 10 people, in his case, who all paid a premium to be there.

They’re all focused, and he creates breathing room for the coaching to happen, right? Sometimes it’s just Q&A, but then one person asks a question, you answer their question in front of the group, and everybody else goes, “Oh man, that’s exactly what I needed to learn.” Right? And that’s how it’s so different from, uh, like an asynchronous online course, is that somebody else asked a question that you didn’t think about, and then you learn because of that.

And so that’s, yeah, that structure, it just works so well. And ending with, starting with wins and ending with takeaways also means every single week people feel a sense of progress. So they’re not waiting till the end for the payoff.

Liz Wilcox: Yeah. Feel a sense of progress. That’s so, so important. And that’s why, you know, we took it from Team Flynn to Team Win, what’s important now, right?

Because I want you to feel that sense of progress as you, like, you know, take action. You say, “Yep, I’m gonna focus on my group program.” And you know, “Oh, I wrote down the 15, 30, 30, 15.” You know, like, that’s even, that’s even, like, a little micro step, right? So I love, love, love that so much. So we’ve talked about getting those first, like, five clients, charging around $2,000, and I love that you even just mentioned it again.

You know, they’ve, they’ve put down a premium, and so they’re focused, right? They’re, they’re going to see those results. So let’s talk about, I know that you often say, like, celebrate clients to create more clients. So let’s, let’s talk about how we get this really steamrolling.

John Meese: Yeah. I love that. So, uh, once you get to, through the first cohort and you’re sold out, and all of a sudden, you know, with the…

When you just announce that you’ve got this program that sold out, people start to lean in and say, “Wait, what is it? I wanna learn more.” But they don’t really wanna learn. They don’t want you to share with them like, “Well, here’s the 17 things I teach in my program.” They wanna know, like, is this real? Is this possible?

Is this… Can I change my life? Can I improve with this? And the best thing to do there is share real stories of real clients. And so this is step six of the seven-step playbook I teach in the book Sold-Out Coach, which is to celebrate clients to create more clients. It is one of the most fun things you can do in marketing, is just to focus on, how can I tell real stories of real clients?

I’ve done it today. I mean, think about it. I’ve told you about Marie, I’ve told you about Mike, I’ve told you about other Mike. Actually, I told you about two Mikes. I don’t know if that was fr- smart, but I did it. I also told you about Sean, right? Like, uh, like, just making it a point of instead of just teaching a principle, how can you use a real client story to illustrate it?

It makes it come to life, and it causes people to go like, “Oh, wow, I wanna be like Marie. I wanna be like Dustin. I wanna be like Sean.” And then it, it… that inspires people to come to you, and sometimes that’s actually the message you get, is like, “Hey, how do I be like Dustin? How do I be like Marie?” Right? And so i- that celebrating clients cr- it creates more clients.

So primarily it’s a principle, first and foremost, of if you celebrate clients to create more clients, that means, like, in my book, I’ve got literally 20 different stories that I use to illustrate lessons in the book that are all different real clients, right? So it’s like instead of me just talking about my program over and over again, I’m just telling you about real clients, and you go, “I wanna be like them,” right?

It creates this like, I like them. I, I feel like I know them. They’re characters in the story, but they’re real, true people. The second thing is there are live ways you can do this. Like, one of my favorite ways to do this is a showcase. It’s so simple. It’s not a webinar, but it looks kinda like one from the outside, where you take a client who’s had a major success, and then you just, and publicly send a hand-raiser and say, “Hey, I was just talking to Marie about how she’s now at the point where she’s getting five clients every single month joining her $3,000 coaching program on how to get rid of morning sickness, and the way she’s getting new leads is really unique.

I’d love to share it with you. Thankfully, McGre- Marie agreed to join me on a free Q&A next week just to share a bit about how she did it. Would you like me to include you in the calendar invite?” Right?

Liz Wilcox: Bro.

John Meese: And so-

Liz Wilcox: Bro, that’s so genius. I’m like, yes. Hit reply, all caps, Y-E-S, S-S-S-S-S-S-S. That’s so smart And it’s, it’s so true.

I mean, if we rewind, what, 20 minutes when I was like, “Oh, I thought I wasn’t ready for a group program, but now I am.” You know, just hearing Marie’s story reminded me- Yeah … of that, and, and suddenly I was there, right? Like, I was in the story with Marie and John, and I was, I was fired up, ready to go. So I love this so much, and that’s so genius to…

You know, number one, Marie or, you know, whoever is gonna do that Q&A with John, like, they’re gonna feel so good, right? They put down that money with John or whoever, right, with you, and they, they are proud to show their results. You’re, “Yes, finally I focused in. I, you know, paid the money and I got results.”

Because it’s… I always say, like, on sales pages and on sales calls that you’re not convincing them of what you can do. You’re convincing them of what they can do for themselves. And so I don’t think, and, you know, John, maybe you can affirm, that it’s really that hard to say like, “Hey, Marie, you wanna come do this thing with me?

Like, can we show off all the hard work you’ve done?” Right? Like, that’s usually probably a pretty easy yes, right?

John Meese: They love it. They’re so excited when you ask someone that. They feel like it’s an honor ’cause they’ve… Also, especially when you do this regularly. I’ve got a whole series on my YouTube channel that’s just sold-out coach Q&As, and so it’s an honor now when someone’s like, “I get to be on the wall of, like, I get to do this live Q&A.”

And every time I do one of those Q&As, like, I’m not showing up with a pitch. I’m showing up to say, “I’m so excited to see what you did, Bo or Melissa or, you know, or Shawn. Would you share with us? What did you do exactly?” And what happens is when you ask them that, they say, “Well, I wouldn’t have known how to do this if you hadn’t taught me.”

So, like, you didn’t even ask them for a pitch, but they go like, “John’s program is amazing because I learned all these things from him, and I couldn’t have done it without his help. So thank you, John.” You’re like, “Oh, wow, what a surprise.” But it happens every single time, right? And so, and so then they go and they answer, and then they go in and they, they show examples, and then you tell people in the audience, “What questions do you have for them?”

You’re mostly just the moderator, and then by the end of it, people are asking, “Wait, what is this program exactly? How do I join this program?” And you’re like, “Oh, wow, since you asked, yeah. I mean, if you’re interested in learning more about how I can help you achieve your goals, then schedule a call with me.

I’d love to learn more about your goals to see if or how I can help

Liz Wilcox: I love this.

John Meese: It’s the whole- It’s so fun … it’s the whole playbook. It’s like, yeah. Uh, Jeremy Pryor, one of my clients, he used to have a really complicated, like, webinar funnel, like all the emails here, you know, the whole thing you can do, like emails, webinars, countdown timers.

Now what he does is four times a year he hosts a showcase where he features a family who started a family business that they get to work in, like husband, wife, and kids, and then they get to talk about that. And then he says, “Hey, if you’re interested in doing the same thing yourself, book a call with us.

We’d love to tell you more about our program called Family, Inc.” And four times a year he does this, and for one showcase he gets 20 families to pay $5,000 to join his program. In other words, every time he hosts a showcase, he earns $100,000. It’s like… And he gets to help people.

Liz Wilcox: Listen, y’all, I don’t know if you’re watching the video, but I just wrote SPI Showcase and I circled it.

Yeah. So coming, coming to a podcast near you. I’m so fired up about this, and it reminds me… It reminds me of, like, Survivor. So if you don’t know, I was on the show Survivor, and guess why I applied and reached out to Jeff Probst and the gang? It was because I saw the people on TV living my dream, saying yes to themselves, you know, going out there and, you know, winning it or losing it.

You know, and I related to certain different kinds of folks, right? Because there’s 18 castaways, there’s 18 personalities out there. But there was a, just the one episode that I watched that finally got me to apply the next day, and that’s what this is, right? Like, you’re showcasing all of the people out there that are living the dream of that ideal client, that target audience, right?

So I love this so, so much. So obviously John has convinced me, you know, coming to an email near you is that hand-raiser, right? But I know that there’s someone out there, maybe, you know, Nahaku or Shahara, they’re listening right now, and they’re still thinking like, “Ugh, I’m not sure if I’m ready.” So, you know, can you give us that sort of, I don’t know, l- let’s give them a pep talk to let them know that they’re ready and that this should be their next move.

John Meese: Yeah. So I wish I could say everybody’s ready, but the truth is there are some things we have to get clear on to make sure. Like, it, it… This is not the case where everybody can be a heart surgeon, right? So there are some prerequisites here. So I will say, though, like, they’re not much. So I actually do have…

This is actually, if you go to soldoutquiz.com, this is just five questions that immediately answers for you are green, yellow, or red. Right now it gives you a green, yellow, or red score. Are you currently ready? And if you’re not, like, if you get a yellow, it’s like you’re almost ready. You get a personalized plan, and that’s like here’s exactly what you need to do to get ready.

So that’s a free resource that I created to go along with the book to say, like, “Hey, there’s a few questions you gotta answer to find that out.” But it’s not much. It’s five questions, takes 60 seconds. So soldoutquiz.com, I’d recommend you start there. The bigger picture here is really just if you have a heart of service and you’re trying to build an authority business, ultimately, I think it’s critical that everybody at least try group coaching at some point in their business, because it’s so easy to lose sight of the real human beings that are inside of your business when you’re sending emails, or posting on social media, or selling courses.

Eventually, it becomes this, this sea of, you know, numbers. I mean, I’ve worked with… I w- This is kind of where this came from is, like, I used to work behind the scenes of businesses that are doing 2 to $20 million a year in revenue from online education, and they kind of forgot that there were humans inside of it.

We’d have a meeting, and they were like, “Oh, man, we only made $650,000 in the last two weeks from our launch that, to s- 160,000 people.” And I’m like, “Well, hold on a minute. Like, that’s pretty great. Like, and these are real human beings who are buying this.” Like, like, you know, it’s like that was a failed launch for some clients.

And so it’s like I think it’s really, especially as your audience grows, it’s hard to remember to put a, a face to the name of, like, the subscribers. And so I think it’s really critical, honestly, to have something like this where you’re working closely with your superfans, and you’re testing ideas, you’re helping them achieve results, and then that’s gonna inspire your newsletter, your YouTube content, your podcast, everything else.

This becomes, like, the incubator where you get to teach your best content to your superfans and help them improve their lives, and it fuels the rest of your business, both financially and just with the motivation that comes out of seeing people succeed.

Liz Wilcox: Love that. Now, give us the URL for that quiz one more time.

John Meese: Okay. Soldoutquiz.com

Liz Wilcox: SoldOutQuiz.com. And on that note, John has a brand-new book out called Sold Out Coach: Exactly How to Earn 10K a Month Group Coaching 90 Minutes Per Week. So tell us about that book and where we can get it today.

John Meese: Oh, happy to. Thank you. You can get it wherever books are sold. I mean, I think if you go to soldout.coach, it’ll take you to, you know, like, your local bookstore, essentially.

But the, the book itself essentially distills everything I’ve been teaching for the last five years in Sold Out Coach Club, my group coaching program, into a step-by-step playbook. So when you read the book, I think of it like, you know, essentially it’s like, “Hey, if you want to do this, I wanna make sure…”

Because I only work with a handful of clients a year, and so I wanna make sure that I don’t limit your ability to just people that can work with me. And so Sold Out Coach the book is really everything we teach in the group coaching program, but in, you know, your own playbook that you can carry around with you.

You know, you can highlight, mark up, and then put into practice. So that’s what that book is. I ho- I hope you check it out. It’s based on the seven-step playbook we use in my group coaching program, which people have used to make… I have some clients who earn more than a million dollars a year now from group coaching who’ve started this.

Other people who are happy to make $200,000 or $300,000 a year. So I’m a big fan of choose your own adventure. It’s not always seven figures, but you can. So this opens up a huge amount of opportunity for your business. Just Soldout.coach.

Liz Wilcox: Soldout.coach. I am there right now. I’m also on the sellyoursmarts.co/soldout page.

These testimonials talk about celebrating your clients, and I see so many faces that I know, that I have seen around the internet. Wow, John, you are a real one. I cannot wait-

John Meese: Thank you.

Liz Wilcox: … for everyone to check out your links, read your book, and become sold out themselves. Thanks so much.

John Meese: Amazing. Keep up the good work.