The Easiest Way To Sell Your Group Coaching Program After A Free Zoom Workshop

Are you struggling to find an easy, low-tech way to get people to pay you for your coaching program after doing a free training on zoom?

That’s exactly the problem a friend was asking me about last week.

Normally, she sells her programs at live events, but ever since Covid19 she’s been moving online.

….and is totally killing it btw.

She’s not having trouble getting people onto her free training and convincing them to buy. BUT, it’s a little awkward because she has to email them a PayPal invoice afterward.

Unsurprisingly, she’s lost a few people along the way.

So, what’s the solution, Susanna?

When people come to me with these questions my brain sort of explodes.
Why? –> because there are literally hundreds of tools that you could do this with.

And while there is the “ideal” way to do things. The “ideal way” often comes with a price. Two of the big ones being:

• complexity (which means set-up time is long)
• and, a big price tag

To help, I’m going to share the exact solution I shared with my friend – which also happens to be the perfect compromise.

It’s practical and even though it’s not perfect, it’s still a really good solution. And it’s certainly better than nothing.

Wait … but what’s the perfect solution Susanna?

I’ll tell you, but promise not to go off on a goose chase unless you plan to spend 10-30 hours researching the options and then setting it up.

Ok, now that I’ve said that …

…The “perfect” solution for her situation is probably live webinar software with eCommerce capabilities. ($50+)

I just didn’t feel comfortable recommending it because it’s too complicated and costly for this situation.
…even just the idea of having to do a webinar can halt momentum.

And the cost, even for my friend who’s making money, is not exactly exciting either.

Let me explain her situation so that you can decide if this could work for you too

• She isn’t technical or a savvy designer (she could be, but she doesn’t want to spend her time or energy on that)
  
• She hasn’t had a problem getting people to her zoom workshops. She just needs a simple way to get people to pay her afterwards
  
• She doesn’t have a website and isn’t going to get one anytime soon.
  
• She has 5 minutes to set something up. Well, not exactly 5, but you know what I mean … basically, she’d like to get it set up in an afternoon.
  
• She gets people onto her webinars by posting on her Facebook profile and connecting with friends and colleagues. Basically, ads aren’t a part of her strategy for the foreseeable future.
  
• She has her business and a part-time job, which means she has a limited amount of time to spend on her business. She wants every minute to count.

I wanted to give her something that she can be ready to use in 30-90 minutes if she does the bare minimum.

– Or an afternoon if she does absolutely everything that can be done with it.

A “real” website and fancy webinar software is something that she should probably do within the next 3-6 months, but she doesn’t have to start with that now.

So, if you’re in a similar situation I suggest you read on! And if you’re still undecided heed my warning ….

Basically, don’t make the mistake of getting too complicated too fast.

We’ve all been there!

We start looking for what we think should be a simple answer but end up with more questions than answers.

… and sometimes an existential crisis after you get stuck in an Alice In Wonderland alternate universe that I like to call “Tech Wonderland”

Unfortunately, a combination of easy-to-use, full-featured, and reasonably-priced is harder to come by than we’d like!

So, ya… she isn’t the first person to go through this. And she definitely won’t be the last.

And while we’re on the topic, I’d avoid these two solutions as well:

• Adding WooCommerce to a WordPress Website and connecting it to webinar software (cost: $50+)
• Buying landing page or all-in-one software with eCommerce capabilities ($100+)

All of that is great if she was ready to invest the time and money. But even then, the solution I’m recommending is exactly what I’d set up for her while I did that.

This is the exact solution I recommended to my friend

Say hello to Book Like A Boss. (Cost: $20-$30)

It’s basically an eCommerce and calendar-booking system in one.

It connects to PayPal and Stripe so that you can:

• Make people pay for coaching sessions when they book an appointment.
• Sell 1-1 or group coaching programs

And …

• Schedule discovery calls (without the back and forth and time-zone fiascos)

I have been a user for about a year.

At first, I waffled between Acuity, Honeybook, and Calendly (other similar apps). But I have happily settled on Book Like A Boss and have no plans of switching!

Those are good apps and offer many of the same features, but Book Like A Boss is the better solution for me.

…It’s also the better solution for this specific situation.

Let me tell and why. And then tell you how I’d set it up for this specific situation.

This is why Book Like A Boss is the best solution for this scenario

• It’s not just a calendar system – it’s a whole web page. But a very, very simple one that includes all of the essentials (i.e testimonials, a short about you section, etc).
• The price is the same or lower than other options that have fewer features.

Basically, the others just didn’t offer these two very essential features which are important for my friend:

• The web page feature
• Group event booking feature (for selling group coaching)

(along with the simple ecommerce features, calendar booking, and everything else.)

Here’s how I recommend you set it up for this situation.

Step 1: (Optional)

Create an appointment in Book Like A Boss for your free zoom workshop.

The benefit to doing this is that:

• you’ll get their email addresses.
• if you are going to go live more than once, they can pick another date.
• you can set it up so that they get emails and sms/text messages to remind them.
• the zoom meeting link will automatically be shared with them.

Step 2:

Create a product for your group coaching program.

• Make sure they CAN’T choose a date and time.
• Include the date and time for the event in the description
• Make sure that the email that goes out after purchase includes the date and time of the events
• Since you’ll have their email addresses in Book Like A Boss, you can also invite them to a Google Calendar Booking.
• The redirect URL should be the URL for the product you create below

Step 3:

Create a product for a bundle of coaching sessions

• Allow them to choose a date and time for their first meeting with you
• Make sure they get at least one email and/or SMS message to remind them (I send three: 24 hours before, 3 hours before, and 15 minutes before)
• In the success message include the date and time for the group coaching sessions.
• Check the “Create Meeting in Zoom when Booked” button (bottom right)

Step 4:

Go back to the product you created in Step 2 and make sure the “thank you page” is a link to the product you created in Step 3.

There are other ways you can do it, but this is probably the best way.

And there are other important settings and things you need to do to set up your account (i.e. connecting PayPal) but, for the purpose of this post, these are the most relevant.

What now?

Well, obviously your very next step should be buying Book Like A Boss.

–> At minimum you’ll need the Capuccino plan ($20/mo).

The great thing about this is that you’ll be able to use it to coordinate all of your meetings with this software as well.

Honestly, I love not having to do the annoying back and forth of scheduling appointments. (say goodbye to the 3-day email threads and time-zone confusion).

Enjoy and have fun – and please share any pages you create!