I had been following this coach for years. I read everything she wrote, listened to her podcast, bought her e-books and looked forward to one day working with her.
Finally – right offer, right person, right time – I jumped into her group coaching program.
It was a disaster. I hadn’t done my research and didn’t realise how large the group would be. The interaction with the coach was non-existent, instead I was put into a small cohort with one of her coaches. One small group session with the coach was done with the coach in bed, drinking wine. Disappointed, I let busy things distract me and eventually, I disappeared.
I don’t blame this coach. I did what lots of group coaching participants do – join a group full of expectations, before becoming disengaged and letting busy become the excuse why they can’t participate.
A group coaching program offers lots of advantages over one-to-one, including the lower price point, and the opportunity to learn, and benefit from, others in the group.
Here’s how to get the most out of group coaching programs.
Believe that you will get excellent ROI
First up: you need to believe that you can 10x your return on investment (ROI). Without this belief, it’ll be impossible to achieve.
However, when you believe that a 10x ROI is possible – and put yourself in rooms the normalise the beliefs and behaviours that you’re trying to adopt – then you’ll rise to meet the challenge.
Conversely, when you invest in a group program because you feel stuck and you want someone to ‘fix’ you, you’re acting from a disempowering, reactive energy.
If you’re coming into a mentorship space stressed about money, feeling like, “this ‘has’ to work”, then it likely won’t. Focusing on financial scarcity – and bringing this up with your coach (unless they’re a money coach and that’s what you specifically hired them for) will not enable you to 10x your ROI.
Instead, focus on your desires. Centre your ambitions. Bring your future self into the group. Your attitude is everything (it’s either costing you money, or making you money).
Declare your goals
So many owners struggle to declare their goals out loud. But there’s something extremely powerful when you do so, because then? Everyone and everything will conspire to help you.
Being in community with others can be a vulnerable experience, especially if you’re in a state of transition and are unsure about your next step. But vulnerability is essential to coaching.
Have clear intentions for why you’re choosing this particular group program and this particular coach. Are they modelling behaviours that you’d like to have? Do they have a particular experience that mirrors yours?
Make sure your coach knows your intentions.
Tell them:
• Why you’re here
• What you’re doing this year
• What you want to learn
• Who you want to be
• What your money goals are
• What you want to sell
• How you want to sell it
• How you want to feel in your business.
Don’t whisper your desires once – declare them repeatedly, especially when it makes you feel uncomfortable.
What you believe and what you declare out loud becomes your north star that guides your emerging future.
Come as you are
‘Cleaning the house for the cleaner’ is a very common mistake that sounds like the little voice in your head which says, “when I get my shit together, then I’ll join that coach’s group program”.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t gotten my shit together, and I’m 45 years in.
Postponing your deep desires until a mythical time when your life, health, relationships, and business is sorted, means you’re waiting forever. But worse, you’ve convinced yourself that “the perfect future” is real.
Instead, we have the imperfect present. So come as you are. A great coaching and program framework will meet you where you’re at, draw out your genius and unique approach and hold your big vision for you, even if you’re stuck in the weeds and struggling to see it.
Turn up as your whole self, but also take the opportunity to come as your best self.
Focus on where you’re going, rather than rehashing the past
We all accumulate setbacks, disappointments, mistakes, and crappy experiences. This is universal. The challenge is to hope, trust, and believe in a better future, and act accordingly.
If you’ve been following the coach for a while and gotten results from their free content, then trust them. Believe that they have your best interests at heart.
Some clients pay me a lot of money to argue for their limitations. No matter how often I celebrate their progress, or point out their strengths and opportunities, they’re busy focuses on the hindrances and limitations.
“The reward for fighting for your limitation is that you get to keep them”.
Instead, bring each and every progress, step and breakthrough to your coach and group so they can celebrate. Emotions are contagious and celebration is fuel for joy, which powers people, which powers people.
You’re paying your coach to tell you the truth. When they give you an answer to a question, don’t respond ‘yeah, but…’
Their advice may appear basic, and you may already know it. You may have tried it in the past and had less-than-stellar results. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.
Ask better questions
Too many questions are loaded with preconceptions, which means they’re closed questions, anticipated a closed answer.
For example, rather than, ‘why aren’t people buying?’ – a better question is ‘what is my community preoccupied with right now?’
Rather than ‘will people pay that price?’, a better question is ‘how will I communicate the value of my offering?’
The same goes with having tried a strategy and it not working out for you. Perhaps it was because you borrowed someone else’s strategy without really understanding the ‘why’ behind it. Perhaps it’s because you quit too early, before you’d had a chance to build momentum. Perhaps it’s because the strategy makes no sense for you, your strengths, preferences and business model.
There are many reasons why things don’t work out. It doesn’t mean the strategy or tactic is the problem. With a tweak or two, it may work out brilliantly for you.
Stop trying to be the perfect student
I see this a lot – the program participant who’s super keen to be the star student, doing every single lesson thoroughly. These owners don’t get excellent ROI.
It’s precisely their desire to “keep up” and be a good student that stops them from implementing.
The most valuable part of a group program are the live calls and interactions with the coach – these are what you should prioritise. Your coach doesn’t care if you haven’t completed lesson 12 yet. They care about what you’ve done differently, your evolving attitude, what you’ve implemented – these are the results of the learning.
Ask yourself, “why am I not leaning in?” If the answer is, “because I don’t want to disappoint the coach because I haven’t kept up with the lessons in the portal”, then check yourself.
We’re not in school anymore. There are grades given. The best learning materials are those that make you so excited to implement that you pause the video mid-way and do so. Not every lesson will be relevant, right now, or perhaps at all.
Learning isn’t the end goal. Implementation is.
“I’m my own worst critic,” is a sure-fire recipe for wrought out marketing, stop-start sales, and a miserable owner. Criticising is easy. There’s a cynic and skeptic being miserable together on every corner.
Rather than reading into one low month, one lacklustre launch, or one less-than-stellar season, successful owners work hard at building their emotional buoyancy, capacity and resilience.
When you learn how to be our own hype girl – while remaining open to feedback from your coach – then you’re able to speed ahead.
Right now, you may be 12 steps ahead inside of what you’re doing on the outside, and that’s okay, because you’ll catch up with your aspirations eventually.
Step up. Claim your place.
