Your product is your thinking.

Costco is an unbelievable business

Their membership fee is their business model, product and the marketing all at once

They cap markup at about 14%, sell hot dogs at $1.50 and have done forever

That pricing rule is their advert, they spend almost nothing on advertising because their model does it.

Ryanair are the same

They strip everything out, the stripped out product AND price are the advert - then their marketing plays on all of these features.

Ikea - Flat pack, cheap to ship, you assemble it, price is the message, everything is coherent. People know and talk about this, which does the marketing.

Now go and look at what gets sold to coaches.

There’s a coaching course.

Then a marketing course.

Then someone selling you business mentoring

This is all underpinned by an idea we’re sold that these are different jobs, and we’re only good at one of them, or need to change them in isolation, one at a time.

‘Good at coaching’ or ‘help with business’ or ‘need to work on marketing’

It’s a false identification of how a coaching business work, and I think it keeps people stuck more often than not.

Because your marketing isn’t the advert for your coaching, it’s your coaching in public.

Coaching isn’t a cul de sac to an outcome, it’s the delivery of your service, the client experience - which IS your business.

Business is more than just your revenue.

The idea that they’re separate things is a myth, in reality they’re a triangle that consistently feeds into each other.

What you put out is a live demo of what you think - which is fed by what you say when you’re coaching, but also informs what you coach based on the signal back from how your marketing is received.

Your coaching is the delivery of your service that also informs how you change your business and feeds into how you market.

Your price isn’t a business decision that happens somewhere near the coaching. It decides who walks in, how seriously they take it, and what’s possible once they’re there. It interacts with what you want to offer, the touchpoints, the price of your welcome pack, your margins.

So why does it get sold as three things?

Two reasons - One, because three subjects sell three times.

Two - marketing and business feel like dark arts, coaching feels like the virtuous thing

It’s easy to sell coaching improvement to people who love coaching, and convince them that the other stuff is shady.

Sales and revenue are dirty words that are ignored - you’re either in it to make money or help people

Coaching > Business makes you a better coach because you care

It’s contrived nonsense

Focus on all of them?

Help your audience feel seen by your marketing

Help your clients be transformed by your coaching

Help everyone love the experience and feeling your business generates

I can’t help but feel we hate the ‘this or that’ nature of the training and food content we see

Yet completely buy into it when it comes to coaching business

Open it on its own page →