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    Episode 169: How To Launch Your Services Online: Small Business Help Part 2 – with April Beach

    SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast April Beach

    This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?

     

    Episode Bonuses:

    Need faster business growth? Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.

    Who This Episode is Great For:

    This episode is for small businesses that want to launch live group coaching and need help getting started. Software makes up the nuts and bolts of your online business, but it tends to overwhelm some to the point of stopping. Trust me when I say that if I can use (and now teach on) software, anyone can! The important part is making sure the software you choose works for you! This show is for business owners who are considering building a group coaching program and want to make smart choices.

    Summary:

    How to build a powerful group coaching program.  In this show, I break down how to plan your group purpose, how to choose the best software, and how to bill, onboard and pick the best platforms for success. Every business is different and this episode helps you find the right answers for your business. We also discuss the power (and joy) of hosting live group calls and what types of entrepreneurs will thrive with this business offering. 
     
    Today’s episode will help you plan your group’s purpose, schedule, taking payment, onboarding customers and deciding the best platform for your group goals. 

    Highlights:

    1. Determine what type of group you’re building
    2. Choose the online platform to build your group in
    3. Set up how people pay you.
    4. Understand why AI plays a key role in customer satisfaction. 

    Resources Mentioned:


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    Full Show Transcript:

    you’re listening to the sweet life entrepreneur podcast Simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business, mental and entrepreneur activator A probe age How you guys, um, welcome back to the show. You are listening to the sweet life entrepreneur in business podcast, and I’m a pro beach online business development expert in strategist, and I am here to help you continue to grow your current business online. Or for those of you who are interested in launching new online service is or a new online business.
    All of the show notes and the resource is that we have for you can be found by visiting Suite life podcast dot com Now on today’s show, we’re actually continuing a two part training that we started last week about how tow launch your online service is. This is something that is an amazing way to grow your business. It’s an important way to scale your business, meaning you could duplicate yourself and reach more people. Bye and launching online coaching, consulting and digital service is digital products, and we’re diving into the actual nuts and bolts of some things that you need to have in place to watch group coaching service’s and some different considerations based on the type of delivery that you may want to have.
    A CE faras sharing service is to groping people online. So this is perfect for you if you find yourself in a place where your company is ready to scale so you’ve reached capacity, meaning you can no longer see people face to face or one on one. And right now, if you’re listening to this riel time were stuck in this sad and funky Corona virus economy, so we can’t see people face to phase right now, anyway. And so it’s a great opportunity for you to continue to reach groups of people.
    Reach your audience, Reacher established customers gain more customers by launching Group Coaching Service’s. This is also perfect for you. Have you been thinking about hosting on online mastermind group? Or if you’ve been thinking about hosting instruction or some sort of training two groups of people at once, this is an ideal chauffeur you to listen to. All of the show notes will be found at Sweet Life, podcast dot com, forward slash 1 69 and for advanced business development coaching programs, courses and masterminds cruise over to sweet life co dot com,
    and there are a variety of opportunities for you to help you take your business to the next level Online over there for you. Okay, All right, let’s go ahead and dive into today’s business training. All right, As we’re talking about group coaching, it’s important to differentiate that the type of group coaching we’re discussing is different than if you were coaching a team. This is actually for those of you who are experts, mentors, leaders, skill teachers, coaches and consultants. And you want to host a group where each individual in the group has their own story,
    their own track. So it’s different than if you were coaching a team all for one purpose. To learn to do one exact thing. Group coaching is where you still have similar goals, and you have to outline the expectations for any grip you launch. But each person is creating their own reality out of the instruction that you are giving. So I just wanted to differentiate that here in the beginning, and there are generally two different types of groups that you can think about creating and you know, the sky’s the limit on this.
    But for the sake of this podcast in this training, this is the easiest way to just really move us along here and get your group coaching started faster. So the 1st 1 is instructional group in an instructional group is really where you are teaching strategies so people can take them, make them their own, apply them to their own life or their own business, and then move forward or the other type of group. Coaching can be community based, where you’re actually facilitating, Ah, place for people to work together,
    work amongst each other, really connect with each other over the similarity that they have in the topics that you are leading them with. And most group programs actually contain an aspect of both of that, whether it’s instruction the majority of the time. And then there’s a community component for an afterburn effect, or whether it is established within that particular group coaching program from the very beginning. Another thing I wanted to talk to you about is that if you are launching a course that a group of people are going to go through,
    that isn’t what we’re talking about on today’s show, but we’re really talking about live events where you’re coaching a group of people at a time. So I just wanted to clarify that before we dove into this particular episode now a couple reasons why this is amazing. First of all, one of my favorite things to Dio is to connect with people live in a group there, so much fire that goes around and passion, and people start talking and inspiring each other. It is one of the best ways to coach people,
    so I just wanted to share. Everybody’s experience is different, but it’s one of my favorite things to do is to see that happen based on the leadership that I give to a group of women entrepreneurs in. So if you are a type of business leader that your personality loves, that community loves mentoring and inspiring others. A live group program could be a really excellent business model for you know, we always want you to pick a business model where you’re happy and you thrive at what you’re doing, cause that’s gonna make you even better at what you already are in your area of expertise.
    So the first thing is to establish. What is the purpose of this group? Is this strictly for instruction? Is this a community based group?
    Am I delivering content on a certain schedule within this community? What are people going to expect out to be part of this group?
    And how should I set this group up for success again? It could be a combination of all these things.
    Or you can just host groups based on one of those aspects again, community instruction or content delivery. And so,
    after you’ve made that choice, step Number two is diving in and picking the platform. So where is this group gonna live?
    Where do you want to live there? So many options? The 1st 1 Let’s just get it out of the way.
    First is a Facebook group. You know, I hate Facebook groups, but I also have Facebook groups because they’re easy and people are there all the time.
    It’s hard to retrain an entire audience on something there, naturally doing everyday anyway. But Facebook groups have their pros and cons,
    and so that might or it might not be a good place for you to host your group, but I just wanted to mention that first,
    because it’s one of the first ones that people think of another option, which is doing a great job.
    It can be competing with Facebook, and we talked about this on the last few episodes. I’ve spoken about this platform a couple of times,
    but it’s called Mighty Networks. Mighty Networks is a super rad app. I will tell you I love being part of mighty networks.
    I’ve had my tea networks groups. It’s so nice because it gives me, like, a push notification on the sleep screen of my phone when somebody has posted to me and I can I can set up my notifications for that rather than having to go into Facebook and scroll through all my notifications that came from my sister and my cousin and my clients.
    It’s a terrible thing to do, especially for people like me that have at least 10 different squirrel moments every single day.
    It’s really hard for me to stave, bogus. And so that’s why baseball is another reason why Facebook is a terrible option for me.
    But Mighty host does a really good job of creating topics so people can communicate, and in post under them and taking people outside of really that cluster.
    You know what that happens inside Facebook? The downfall of that is there is no live streaming into my tea house.
    And that’s one of the reasons why I’m still in place because I love and you might love this, too.
    And this is thinking about how you want to connect with your group. I love being able to pick up my phone,
    click the Gold Life button and just be able to talk in there and say, Hey, how’s everybody doing today?
    That’s something that’s important for me. It’s something that my community expects and wants for me. And unfortunately,
    at the recording of this, it’s just not an option that’s available in mighty House. But I just wanted to share those two things because they’re the 1st 2 platforms that entrepreneurs usually hook on to.
    Mighty host does integrate with zoom so you can in bed video through zoom. But it still requires you to log on to a totally different platform rather than just clicking a go live button.
    And when you’re a busy woman man, every step counts, doesn’t it? All right, couple other platforms I wanted to throw out there for you.
    You’re gonna have to test which one you like. The 1st 1 we already mentioned is Zoom. I’m sure you know,
    zoom by now. There are two different types. Asim Platforms. As we mentioned on last week’s podcast,
    There’s Zoom Meeting and they’re Zoom webinar and they both have totally different functions. So it’s based on how you want those platforms to function,
    and you can use either one for group coaching. The other two are Google hangouts. I will admit I just attended my very first Google hangout last Friday,
    and I thought it would be a lot harder to get into Google hangouts. It wasn’t something that I ever felt like I wanted to even try.
    And there was a meeting that I wanted to connect with a group of really cool women here in Colorado from women who start up and they had a Google hangout and it was pretty cool.
    There were some downfalls to it that I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t see everybody like you can in a zoom platform,
    but it was easy. It was easy for me to get on there and it was clearly integrated with my Google business email,
    so that was very simple, too. So Google hangouts could be something that’s may be a first step if you want to host community in Host group Coaching service is online and then the other one is crowd cast.
    I Love crowd cast. I’ve used crowd cast numerous times. It has a great integration feature where you can see people’s live chat,
    especially when you’re on crowd cast online. Unfortunately, crowd cast has had quite a few technical problems every time I’ve tried to use it.
    But you know what, ladies? That could just be me, because I swear there’s like some magnetic field around me that if some software or tech is going to break,
    it will break at some point in time on my watch. So it definitely could just be me. I love the way the platform works.
    I love the way it’s set up in that has a green room function. And so those are just some suggestions for you.
    I know a lot of the last podcast episodes. We have talked about software, and if you’re building an online business,
    it is software software are the boards and the foundation and the nuts and bolts of your house instead of just having a storefront.
    And so that’s why this software that you choose will make or break your business. And it’s not that it’s the software itself.
    It’s how you use this software, how you needed to function, why you’ve chosen that software and frankly,
    whether or not you know how to use it in a TV for you. At the end of the day,
    we want things that are easy, because then you will perform better and everything else that you d’oh So again I will make sure all of these resources are available for you in the show notes and links to try these things in the show notes for this episode.
    So if you haven’t ever gone a rich our podcast website yet, it’s really cool. It’s like a whole business resource center.
    We rebuilt it about a year and 1/2 ago for you guys in. You go in there under the show notes for this and has all these links to everything we talked about in the show in a whole bunch of other free business training that most business coaches charge thousands of dollars for.
    It’s a huge database of free stuff in there for you guys. So just cruise over to sweet life podcast dot com,
    and you can. You can grab all that and check it out. So we talked about number one.
    She’s in the purpose of your group number two. Choosing your platform. Granted, this is not an exhaustive list of platforms.
    I’m sure there are other platforms out there. These are just the ones that we tend to talk about the most with businesses that are growing and scaling online.
    The third thing is is to create a schedule just like the parameters that we set up in last week’s show about how to set expectations to establish your one on one coaching.
    Virtually the same goes with your group, so it’s important that you have a set schedule that people like you and like me about if you’re listening to the show about you’re a planner like I am,
    I geek out on my calendar that’s one across my wall, and I won’t commit to anything unless I know that I can fit it in my calendar in.
    So if those are the type of people you’re serving, then you want to make sure that you’re prepared and you have a schedule set out now where people register for your group.
    Coaching is really what I want to kind of drill into today. So some of the platforms we talked about have that built in where you can schedule your medians in advance in Zoom,
    and you can even have multiple mediums. Another place you can do this is if you choose to host your online group coaching in Facebook in a private Facebook group.
    You can also create events within Facebook and actually scheduled the events there within Facebook itself. So I just wanted to share that with you two options.
    Make sure you have a place where people can sign up. You have a software that gives them notifications and reminders to show up.
    Because Justcause people sign up doesn’t mean people show up into the end of the day. We want people to obviously show up,
    and so that is an important aspect of whatever software you choose. Make sure that you do have the ability to have people schedule online and get reminders so they will show up for you okay.
    And before we dive into step number four a little behind the scenes here, my husband and my three boys just got back from a long word skateboard ride,
    getting some fresh air, and everybody just came barreling through the door with their shoes and the dogs and the skateboards and everything.
    Welcome to my life. I love my life. Actually, I felt so blessed. But there’s a lot of noise in the background for all these podcasts were recording right now when everybody is home together.
    So thanks so much for bearing with me through that. So step number four is How will you, Bill,
    you got to make money, right? That’s why you do what you do. Yes. You probably love what you d’oh,
    but let’s make you some money so you can keep doing it and help more people. You need to decide how you’re gonna build for your group coaching program.
    Do you want to build once and they get unlimited access to all of your events? Do you want to set them up on a subscription where they’re automatically charged every two weeks or every week or every month?
    And of course, how you lay out your program. The content of what you’re delivering is gonna dictate obviously,
    how long this is gonna go. The point I’m making is it. We have to make sure that your software is set up to support you in this.
    We want to make it easy for people to give you money. Amen. Amen. OK, so this means that whether or not you choose Facebook or you choose zoom or you choose another platform.
    You know, you have to make sure that you’ve determined how you are going to build people, how frequently and how you’re gonna take money in depending on that platform,
    they either have that built in or they don’t. Now, this is a great advantage of mighty networks,
    mighty networks. You can actually receive payment through mighty networks, and everything is all in one there. Another reason why I do love that platform again.
    Nothing’s perfect. So you can’t go live in there. But maybe there are other things you could do to improvise that sort of connection with in your group.
    So I just want you to pay attention to how you’re gonna take money, how frequently you’re gonna build in the most common payment processors are stripe Pei Pao in some people even use square or square up,
    and each of those enables you to create a type of service. Now I’m can’t verify for sure if square up frankly allows you to create subscriptions.
    It’s not a platform I’m an expert in, but I do know that they allow you to charge and build for service is,
    and we have a lot of clients that you square up for. You know, even local service is like esta Titian’s.
    You square up to take payment and my eyelash girl use the square of today payment. And so if you have a one time payment,
    that might just be the easiest thing to do to get people to onboard to your group coaching program. If you’re looking for more of a subscription billing plan,
    then stripe and paper. How are your options? And they have those sort of different payment options integrated within them in those two platforms,
    integrate with most community online platforms as well. So number four the most important thing is make sure you know how you are going to charge people and make sure it’s easy for them to pay you in the last thing I just wanted to touch on.
    Gosh, I think it’s actually been a while since I recorded a whole entire episode on email marketing. Maybe it’s time.
    Message me. Send me a d M on instagram If you want more trains on email marketing email marketing is not your regular business email,
    so it’s not my email address. Email marketing is actually a c R E M. It’s client relations management system and the type of email marketing that I want you to think about.
    Having four group coaching is automated email marketing. This means that when somebody signs up for your group coaching program,
    they get automatic e mails. It’s like using a I. This is how we’re starting to integrate heart official intelligence into our online businesses.
    So the software knows somebody signed up and the software sends them an automatic email that’s written by you super personal,
    thanking them for joining whatever program that you’re doing, letting them notable what to look forward to and it’s automatically sent to them.
    In a perfect world, we want this software to send them a couple of different emails reminding them of the upcoming meeting,
    helping them get onto your platform. Whether that is how to get onto crowd cast or how to join our Facebook group or how to post a topic and mighty host.
    Whatever it is, we want your email marketing to create a relationship with them. Anto walk them on,
    boarding into your program in little teeny baby steps so that they feel super taking care of from this second they pay.
    We want to make sure that the second somebody pays you, they don’t have what most people have is like this momentary panic of buyer remorse where you’re like Oh my gosh,
    I should I should I should have done that, you know, we want them to immediately get any mail and in a perfect world,
    really be redirected to a page. It says, Awesome. And so glad that you’re here. I can’t wait to work with you or I can’t wait to have you join our program.
    This is what you can expect. This is where to go for questions. We’re here for you. We understand what you’re looking for.
    And we have paved the way for you to have an amazing experience in my group coaching platform or program or whenever it ISS.
    That’s why we need an email marketing manager. Now the reality is, is a lot of these platforms don’t have email marketing built in.
    So if you’re choosing these platforms based on the platform itself, it’s not necessarily in all in one. So you might have to go in source an email marketing manager and make sure it connects.
    Or it’s what we call integrates with your community platform of choice. And so listen, it’s like baking a cake.
    There’s 1000 different things that you can put into your set up to make it customized for you if you have questions about this.
    First of all, everybody has questions about this. This isn’t business strategy, you guys, that this is the nuts and bolts of business.
    I am happy to answer your questions about platforms any time I do answer questions about this and how to help you pick your best platform.
    Answer questions about this all the time. Cruise over to our podcast community, our Facebook community. It’s totally free,
    and you can go in there and just plug away any questions that you have, and I’m in there frequently supporting you guys,
    So just go to a sweet life community dot com, and it’ll redirect you to our Facebook community and you can ask any questions.
    So here on the podcast, let me just give you some samples of platforms based on the ones have talked about that have the most capabilities.
    So so far, based on needing to have a platform where you could deliver content, having a schedule that you composed,
    having a way to bill and having notifications go out, then mighty hosts is the way to go. That’s the Gold Star again,
    their downfalls like I still can’t use it because I really appreciate being able to go live with my community.
    I’m willing to piecemeal other parts of software together so that I could still go live with my community, but that might not be a big thing for you,
    so I just wanted to make the easy button up here that mighty hosts and granted, you have to pay for more bells and whistles,
    but is usually the way that businesses go when they’re creating community platforms and community coaching. So far, the other one that I’ve mentioned on other shows,
    which I haven’t had a chance to test yet. But when I first checked it out a year ago and loved it,
    I ran away because I looked to the price tag. It was like $5000 I’m not gonna pay $5000 to play with something.
    But they have a sense rebuild the platform and I can’t wait to get in there. And it’s called Disciple Media.
    In So Disciple Media, I think, has everything it did the last time I checked. Everything that that we want you are gonna play will pay more for it.
    So I will also go ahead and make sure that there’s a link to the new platform built by Disciple Media.
    So you can go in there and try that as well. So let’s go ahead. Let me just do a quick recap.
    You might be able to hear my dogs barking because, seriously, every single person walks by my house and I have a little Chihuahua that never stops parking.
    And especially now that everybody is going for a walk 20 times a day in my neighborhood, that damn dog just never stops working.
    So we’re just gonna push on, aren’t we ladies. Okay, so the recap for today’s show is how to watch your online group Coaching service’s again.
    This is perfect for you guys of your established businesses, and you want to reach more people you want to sell more.
    Service is you want. Establish your expertise or if you’re a new business and you just want to head out the gates with launching group coaching.
    I know that there are quite a few new businesses that have come through our doors in the last six months that are actually launching certification programs,
    so it doesn’t even have to be an actual business. It could be more of an educational certification based program.
    Yeah, group coaching is away, right? So first of all, we talked about platforms and making sure you’re choosing the purpose of your group,
    whether it’s instructional or community or, you know, just strictly sharing content or a combination of any of those choosing your platforms.
    We talked about Facebook groups, mighty networks, crowd cast Google hangouts and zoom. Those are the top ones that people seem to be going through.
    Currently, the recording of this we could probably record this same show in six months and I might give you a different list.
    Number two or diving in the next part is creating a schedule and making sure it’s easy for people to register.
    Easy for them to know what’s coming up again. The clearer in the more, the more simple you lay out your program,
    the more money you are going to make, the more people you are going to enroll the next episode making sure it’s easy to pay you,
    making sure that the experience of going online registering and pays you d picks the experience that you want to give your customers.
    And so you want the whole entire process to aligned with your branding your experience the way you want your customers to feel when they start working with you.
    So if you are a high end brand and you are delivering high end group coaching, you’re not going to take money through Venmo,
    right? Right. So we talked about stripe and papal integration and making sure that it’s smooth sailing there to set up subscriptions,
    accounts or one time payments. We also talked about square up and how that could be an auction for some people as well.
    And then we talked about email marketing to the extent that I would love for you, just a walk away with either new knowledge if you didn’t have this,
    or just reinforce knowledge to what you already know about how important it is to utilize a I in creating automated e mails that are going out to people who have already paid you to reassure them that they’re in the right place.
    So we don’t want any buyer’s remorse who want to create raving fans that are sharing how great it is to work with you over and over again with all of their friends.
    So that is today’s show. This is episode number 169 of The Sweet Life Entrepreneur podcast. Thank you guys so much for being here.
    If you have not yet. I would love it if you’d leave us a review on iTunes. That really helps other podcast listeners find our show.
    And it’s something that we really appreciate very much from you guys. So you could just cruise overto apple and leave us a review.
    And a lot of times we actually read these reviews live online, and we feature a business which is exactly what I’m going to do right now,
    all right? And this is so sweet. I just went over to pole are featured review this week,
    and all you moms will get this. My son Sam, I saw left me. Review. It’s up Sand Beach and says,
    My mom’s podcast. Love you, Mama. Five stars. So not my future business is weak, but that melts my heart.
    I do want a big C tour to five four for your review. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on here,
    You say. That’s so good. It’s like talking to a business Vesti really relate to our style of business advice and how protective she is over her audience.
    Just pinged a few episodes and I’m hooked. Keep it going. Thank you so much for leaving that review.
    That really means a lot, but I don’t know your businesses and I want to shout out and help you get eyes on your business is well,
    so if this is your business d m me directly on Instagram, you confined me at sweet life. Underscore entrepreneur.
    That’s my instagram account, where I share a lot of business and a lot of mom with three teenage boys.
    Life in de Emmy there and let me know your business so we can go ahead and make sure that we give you a shout right back out.
    See tour to 54 All right, you guys, thank you so much for hanging out with me on today’s show.
    Next week we have Sarah tomes are Facebook and Instagram ads expert back in the house, and she’s diving through the seven steps to set up your Facebook business page or fix your broken Facebook business page to make sure you are optimizing your results in the time you put in there.
    Next week’s show, All right.
    That’s all folks!