Ask Steph: How can I get my potential students to see the value in my online group coaching program?

Today I am answering a listener question around overcoming the objection of perceived value and support offered within this listener's online program. Here are my tips on how to address this common problem:

• Identifying the audience categories who will value your offer, so you can avoid selling it to people who won't ever see the value.
• How to show your potential buyers why they should value your product.
• How to strategically create a bonus that overcomes a key objection—so the perceived value of your offer goes up in their eyes.

Have a question you'd like me to answer on the show? Write in with your question at https://stephtaylor.co/asksteph

 

How can I get my potential students to see the value in my online group coaching program?

 

Today, I'm answering a listener question from Teresa West of Teresa West, Personal Trainer.

The question is from Teresa: I have built a successful one-to-one training business, however, I have built and launched an online coaching program. And I'm getting challenged by getting my potential students to see the value of the online coaching program. And this is my biggest objection. How do I get them to see the value and support that I can still offer through my group online coaching? 

 

Identify the audience who will value your offer

So first with your group coaching. 

You need to identify who you are dealing with because you will have different categories within your audience. And it sounds a little bit like you might have people in your audience, who really value that hands-on coaching. They really want that hands-on personal training. Which is a great thing, except you only have limited hours in the day. 

So even if you have that perfect messaging, the perfect marketing, that probably won't convince these people to work with you in a group program capacity, because they just want the one-on-one and that's okay because they are not your ideal customer for this program. 

Now there might be some in your audience who can't afford the hands-on training right now, but they still want it. So maybe they are waiting until the right time. Maybe they're waiting until they can afford it.

Or maybe they don't live in your area, but they still want to work with you. These are probably the people who you're selling this program. Now, there are definitely people out there who value online training who will see the value of what you are offering. 

So I suspect that a big part of this could be, you're trying to sell it to the wrong people. You are taking a product that is super valuable and you're selling it to people who don't see the value of it.

 

Show your potential buyers why they should value your product

Now another part of that could be that you haven't shown them why they should value it. In your case right now, they think that they need hands-on training. 

They think that that's what they need to get the results that they want. Now in your launch content, you need to show them how they don't need that hands-on training and can still be successful without it. You need to show them the value that comes with working with a group online that's not there in person. 

So, what are those other benefits that they will get from working with you online rather than in person? Educate them on these benefits and how they will help them to get better results. Now you say in your question that they receive high levels of actionable content and know-how as well as private calls and check-ins. 

Do they want content and know-how? There is a lot of content and know-how that they can get on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and all those things like this. So much fitness content. There are a lot of at-home workout programs that they can access. So why should they sign up for your program? 

Getting really clear on why they should choose your program over all of the other alternatives. Accountability is probably going to be a big selling point. What else is in there for them? And really reiterating that over and over again in your launch content and in your sales copy. 

 

Strategically create a bonus that overcomes a key objection

Another thought that comes to mind is whether could you potentially create a bonus to overcome this objection. Usually, people look at bonuses for online courses and programs as shiny objects or things that are nice to have content. That's really nice to include content. That seems really sexy. But they can also be handy for overcoming objections. So in your case, a great bonus could be a technique review. 

Maybe they're filming themselves, performing the movement and you're giving feedback in a way that's easiest for you. Maybe you're structuring this. Where they have three chances for a technique review or five or however many is feasible for you to review. Depending on how many students you have at a time. 

Another thing that comes to mind is whether could you create two versions of the program. One with the technique coaching and one without it. So they have the option to upgrade. Now, obviously the one with the coaching, that's going to be more expensive. That's fine. Some people will choose that option. For others, maybe they'll choose the more affordable option because it's not in their budget. 

Having those two options next to each other has an effect called anchoring. We see this with prices quite a lot, especially with software. You might see this with your email marketing tools, you see it with Kajabi. Where you are buying software, you typically have three tiers of pricing and the middle one almost always ends up being the most popular 

That's because when your brain is seeing one price in isolation, it has no idea whether that's a high price or a low price. If it's a good value or if it's a bad value. Because it has nothing to compare it to. But when you put the context of other prices next to it, now it has something to work with. 

So seeing the price of your program alone versus seeing it next to the price of your program, plus coaching. And maybe even you put the price of the hands-on just one-on-one with you next to that. That helps them to see the value

So make sure that you are doing it when you are using anchoring, it is a very powerful tool when it's done properly. 

 

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