Creating an irresistible coaching offer (feat. Alex Hormozi's value equation) with Julika Franke
with Julika Franke, Positioning & Offer Creation for Coaches
Transcript
Edited for readability: filler words removed, names checked. It may still contain errors. The audio is the source of truth.
Teaser
Julika Franke
So for all the people who think, oh, I need to sell, and maybe they feel a little bit uneasy about that, because they think they make people buy something that they don't need or don't want or whatever: the good news is, if the first two parts, picking the right market and having a great offer, are right, then the last thing, I wouldn't say it's automatic, but it's not really as hard as people think. He has this saying, the riches are in the niches. He gives a very easy example, about a time management course. He says, well, a basic time management book, for example, is like 19 bucks. And then you make a time management course for salespeople, and so the salesperson already thinks, oh, he really means me.
Tobi
Why does it matter so much to have an appealing offer?
Intro
Tobi
How do I find paying clients? This question is what I often hear when I ask coaches about their biggest challenge. And the answer of my guest today, Julika Franke, is: create a compelling offer. And creating a compelling offer is not only about marketing, it's in fact not at all about deceiving your client or your customer into anything. Instead, it's about understanding their world. It's about understanding what is valuable for them, and it's about communicating that value in their language. And this is exactly what today's episode is all about: becoming crystal clear about how you, as a coach, create value. Julika has adapted the value equation, a concept of acquisition guru Alex Hormozi, for coaches and consultants. And today we unpack every element of this equation in detail. How do you communicate a
dream outcome? To what extent can, or even should, you make promises? And how can you put actual monetary value, so a price tag, on your offer? All of this with Julika. Let's get started by hearing who she actually is.
Interview
Julika Franke
My name is Julika Franke. I'm 38 years old. I've been in the field of communications and marketing for, I think, more than 15 years. And now I specialize in helping coaches and consultants build their business without freaking out, let's say. So I try to give them some structure. We are doing something that is called the business blueprint, and at the end they know who they are and what they are offering, and why people should buy from them.
Tobi
Awesome. Who is that typical client of yours, and what do you usually help them with?
Julika Franke
So I'd say that I have three different target groups, audiences. One part is people who are coming directly from coaching institutes. They just got their certificate and they now want to become self-employed as a coach, and I try to help them with that. That is one group. The other group is somebody who is maybe two or three years into their self-employment and they see that it is maybe a little bit more messy than what they expected. They are maybe not really moving forward at the pace that they want, and then we are working together. And then there is a third group, these people are maybe 20, sometimes even more, years into their business. They wrote a book, maybe, so they really added some conceptual value to their field, and now they want to bring their business to the next level. And that is what I'm helping them with.
Tobi
So kind of the zero to one and then the one to 10 buckets.
Julika Franke
Yeah, yeah.
Tobi
Okay, cool. And how does your story of arriving at this kind of mission look, of being a coach to coaches, helping people with their positioning, with client acquisition, with getting focused on their business? How did you arrive at this point?
Julika Franke
So I was thinking about that before coming to this podcast, and I thought, wow, basically I've been in the field of personal development since I was a child, because my mom is a psychotherapist. So I really experienced all this stuff from childhood on. That was my first touch point with, let's say, coaching and personal development in general. Then later on I studied at the University of Witten/Herdecke, which is, I think I can say, a hub for systemic thinking. So the ones who are in this field of systemic coaching probably know the names of the people who were my professors. And that was a very cool experience, to learn from them directly, and that had a major influence on me, for sure. And then I really got a lot of coaching myself. So I was a coachee when I was a manager, in my leadership position. I was a coachee for health, for relationships. I love being a coachee. And so that brings me now into the position where I basically can understand every client's clients, because I was one of them at one point.
Tobi
It makes sense to me that you became a coach, but you could have also become a systemic coach and be great at exactly the service that you received and enjoyed as a client. How come you decided to focus on helping others with their business setup?
Julika Franke
Yeah, that's a good question. So after my studies I started as an assistant at this very university. And as always with assistants, you get many projects, and some of these projects stick. One of my first projects was creating a new website for the university, and there it immediately clicked. I really saw, wow, this communications and marketing thing, that is really something for me. And this is how I became also head of marketing. And then I got another department, so it was communications and marketing, and that was basically my first little organizational development process, because I merged these two departments while I was there. And so, I don't know, it just pulled me in and I loved it. And I really love the resonance that I get from people when I tell them back what I see in them. And I think I now have this interesting combination of, on the one hand coming out of this business world and being somewhat straightforward in a sense, but then also being very familiar with the coaching world. And so I think I can offer people a much more sensitive, or differentiated, approach to marketing, and not this chaka chaka, yeah, we are doing this, I get you 10k, la la la. And people like it, and I like that people like it.
Tobi
So, firstly, simply combining your expertise: on the one hand having lots of exposure to the coaching and development world, and then on the other your actual marketing expertise, and basically putting those two puzzle pieces together. And then I can also see that lots of marketing content, and the sort of get-rich-quick gurus, doesn't resonate with the kind of coaches who are listening to this podcast, the kind of coaches who purchase products at metaFox and who have a systemic worldview, et cetera. I guess it makes sense to come with a more empathic marketing consultancy offer there.
Julika Franke
I think empathic is one thing, and then really trying to understand what they are offering. I think for most systemic coaches the normal marketing world is too flat, there is not enough depth in it, I would say. And so they do not feel seen and they do not feel heard, and they are afraid that they are pushed into some marketing concepts where they need to be salesy in a way they don't want to be. And so I think it's a lot about alignment, about authenticity, and I try to offer them exactly that.
Tobi
I can a hundred percent relate, even for myself. I would also consider myself a child of different schools in a way, but I definitely lack this authenticity bit when it comes to this fear of being seen as someone who I am not, kind of. And that needs, I think, lots of nuance.
Julika Franke
Yeah, I think that especially this sales part is a very delicate one. When it comes to being visible, and this idea of, I am selling my offer, that is something that many coaches struggle with and have very mixed feelings about.
Tobi
And you put lots of focus on this question of how my offer as a coach actually looks. Why does it matter so much to have an appealing offer?
Julika Franke
Yeah, so I'm working a lot with the frameworks of Alex Hormozi, and basically he says being successful has three main components. The first is, you need to pick the right market. The second is, you need to have a great offer. And the third is persuasion. So for all the people who think, oh, I need to sell, and maybe they feel a little bit uneasy about that, because they think they make people buy something that they don't need or don't want or whatever, there is this whole emotional mixed feeling bubble around this persuasion part. And the good news is, if the first two parts, picking the right market and having a great offer, are right, then the last thing, I wouldn't say it's automatic, but it's not really as hard as people think.
Tobi
Okay, really cool. Actually, while you were speaking now, I already took some notes, because I really like how you laid out the foundation: picking the right market, then having an appealing offer, and then getting to this persuasion aspect. And down here I have something that you've provided me beforehand, which I think you call the value equation. Can you introduce that to us?
Julika Franke
Yeah, absolutely. So the equation that we are seeing here is basically the detailed version, the explanation of how we create an appealing offer. And, as we see here, it's really an equation. If the numerator goes up, the whole value increases. If the denominator goes up, the whole value decreases. So that's the whole idea of this value equation. It's just a way of trying to understand what our clients actually really value, and a way of looking at creating an offer in a structured way, so we don't get too confused. And because, as Alex Hormozi says, and I think that is very universally true, people buy from us if we are solving a problem.
So what we are seeing here is that he puts two things in the numerator, which is dream outcome and perceived likelihood of achievement. The perceived value of our service or product increases if we have a big dream outcome. I think that dream outcome really is the cornerstone of this whole equation, because we have many more things that influence this dream outcome: which is the market, which is the target group, which is the problem that we are solving, which is the result that we are promising, et cetera. So there are really many things that, like a little mind map, sit around the dream outcome. It's the market, it's the problem that we are solving, it's the target group, and it is the result that we, in the end, quote unquote promise. I know that this is a very tricky word for coaches, because they always say, I cannot promise
anything, it's in the process, I don't know. And then the perceived likelihood of achievement: that is, as it says, the perceived likelihood that the client will achieve the dream outcome that he or she is expecting from working with us. And it's the likelihood, again, influenced by three factors. Which is, are we appealing to them? Is it the right chemistry, do they just feel that we are a good person? And then, do they trust our method, that with the approach that we are offering the probable outcome will be an outcome that they highly value? And the third thing, and that's maybe the most tricky thing, is, do they trust themselves to achieve that outcome? All three factors can be influenced by how we craft our offer. And that goes for all the four parts of this equation. So basically we look at each part of the equation and then try to make a list and see, okay, where could he or she struggle? And then we try to give
answers to that, in the sense of persuasion, but really in the sense of the offer. So, is it a checklist? Is it a once per day call? We can create these little things that really add to our offer in reality, not in communication and marketing, but really in reality, that make the offer more valuable for them.
Tobi
Okay, really cool. Let's try to make this a bit more tangible by imagining an example coach. Let's say we are a career coach. How could that dream outcome look? What is it that I'm promising, in your experience?
Julika Franke
Well, first of all it's important to understand what the dream outcome really is for your client. So it's not something that we are drawing on a white piece of paper. The best way to find clients is to speak their language, and how we can get there, we can discuss that as well. There is something that I apply oftentimes with my clients, which is a test client strategy, to understand our target audience much more. But then, okay, let's say we are a career coach and we understood that the dream outcome for our target audience is to have a fulfilling job, for example. And one thing that we always do before really crafting the offer is something that I call the transformational journey. So there is always a point A, which is where the client is today, and there is always a point B, which is the dream outcome where we want to bring our client. The point A in this example that you just mentioned: I should start with a job search, I'm not sure about my own skills, I lack confidence, I am afraid that I will never get a good job, I'm frustrated with the last job that I had, stuff like that. And it is really important to put it in the language of your client, so that they read these points, and we aim for five to seven points here, they read the items, and the first one, and they go, oh yeah, that is something I can relate to. The second, oh
yes. And then the third, oh, yeah, that. Okay. And then, at the end of the fifth item, they should have the impression that you have been in their head. And that's the hook, basically. And there is nothing wrong about it, you know? It's just, you understood who you are helping.
Tobi
And these different aspects, they also contribute to each other, add up to each other, in the sense that if I have a really clear target audience, which is the first thing you mentioned, maybe then I'm not just a career coach, but I'm a career coach helping women displaced by AI, let's say. So, being a bit specific. And that also enables you then to be really specific in your language, where people say, wow, this is really my experience that she's talking about. And I can really resonate with that, I guess.
Julika Franke
Absolutely, absolutely. And maybe here I'm jumping, or I bring something in from Alex Hormozi. He has this saying, the riches are in the niches. He gives a very easy example, about a time management course. He says, well, a basic time management book, for example, is like 19 bucks. And then you make a time management course for salespeople, and so the salesperson already thinks, oh, he really means me. And then you make a time management course for salespeople who do outbound sales. And at the end you think, this group is really not very big. And this is always where coaches are afraid, because they think, oh no, I want to be broad, I don't want to be too narrow, I'm afraid. But actually, a certain narrowness really helps with finding clients.
Tobi
And I would say that also goes beyond coaching, that's also entrepreneurship in general. Before you can serve everyone, you need to start really serving someone.
Julika Franke
Yeah.
Tobi
So how could the dream outcome in our example actually sound?
Julika Franke
Yeah. So for example, right now I'm working with a leadership coach. In the leadership field people are overwhelmed. The leaders were very mission driven some years ago, but now they feel worn off, and they are really frustrated with their impact. They do not feel recognized in their team, et cetera. So that's the A, the problem. And then the dream outcome could look like: okay, I am more centered, I feel centered, I feel grounded, I am sure of my ability as a manager, the meetings that I'm leading are more effective, stuff like that.
Tobi
I'm wondering, how specific do you get? Do you remain brief, or do you give very concrete examples there? What would be your advice?
Julika Franke
If it's possible to be very specific, then that's okay. But already the examples that I gave are frightening for many coaches. Many coaches think, oh no, the best thing is just, you get sessions with me, and there is some sort of transformational thing going on, and somehow you will feel better in the end. So already saying, okay, you will have a job, or you will have more energy in your leadership position, and your meetings will be more effective by 20 percent, that's, woo, okay, really, we will write that on my website? Yes.
Tobi
Yeah. So there's a certain carefulness when it comes to promising anything, or even guaranteeing a certain outcome. Which kind of brings us to the right side of the equation, right, this perceived likelihood of achievement. On the one hand the likelihood that the client perceives, but also, what does the coach, what do I as a coach trust myself to promise? What do you see happening when you tackle this part of the equation?
Julika Franke
Yeah. So, especially in the German market, we do not promise a lot. We are more on the perceived likelihood of achievement part. So, do they trust us? There is a lot of personal chemistry going on here, which is not something that we can influence a hundred percent, but there are some things that we can influence, for example the perceived authority. So, I got the feedback some years ago that I was too nice. Somebody declined my offer and then I asked them why that was, and they told me, well, I think we could be friends. And then she decided for somebody 20 years older than me, and she conceptualized it as, she thought that it's the age. But I don't think it was the age, I think it was how I came across, and that I wanted at all cost to have that eye level and to be, you know, just connecting. And that may be something that is a problem for coaches. And in this thing, maybe I was too much of a coach, because we always want to have that rapport, right, that we know works very well when we are actually coaching. But here it's important to understand that until they sign the contract, we are not their coach. We are somebody who offers a service. So that's important, I think.
Tobi
So you're referring to this cluster of, does my client trust me? And that comes, you can dial up that lever if you come across with a little bit of seniority and expertise. Being exactly in their shoes, but communicating in some way that you have been in their shoes, you understand them, but you are also further along now.
Julika Franke
Exactly. You need to make them understand that you are further along the way. And there are little things that help with that. So, especially for women: do not smile all the time. We tend to smile all the time and try to make the other person like us, and that is not helpful. We can be friendly, for sure, but that's not the same. So yeah, we can reflect on that: how much do I actually want to be liked, and how much do I want to lead this process? That is one thing. Or the other thing is, how do I dress?
That was also a value of mine, where I thought, oh, they should like me anyway, whether I'm sitting here in a sweater or in a blazer. No, it does make a difference.
Do I wear earrings or not? What kind of earrings? And that is maybe another thing that we can think about, and that I would highly encourage people to do: we know who our client avatar is, so turning or flipping the whole thing and asking yourself, what is the service provider avatar of our client? What would they like us to be? What is the way we look, the way we behave?
Tobi
Not just the shoes, but drafting the ideal coach persona in a way.
Julika Franke
Exactly.
Tobi
Nice.
Julika Franke
Exactly.
Tobi
Okay. Is there anything else that you consider important in this upper part of the equation? So maybe to summarize: we want to make that dream outcome very compelling, by picking the right target audience, solving the crucial problem for them, and describing it in the right language. And then we want to increase the perceived likelihood of achievement from the client's side, and that comes with, how much do I as a coach seem to be the person who can help them achieve that, and also, to what extent do they trust themselves and the method, the journey that they go on together with you as a coach?
Julika Franke
Yeah, absolutely. And I think there are many things that we can do to increase these last two parts.
For example, we can really ask ourselves, what is it in reality that makes it more probable that they will achieve the outcome, and then offer just that? As I said, it can be more calls, it can be every day or once a week, or it can be a group call, it can be a WhatsApp group where they meet other people. So we really want to ask ourselves, what is it that inhibits the success, and then offer something that basically brings them over this hurdle?
Tobi
Yeah. So it's not only about communicating the offer, it's actually about crafting an offer that works.
Julika Franke
Absolutely. And that is, I think, maybe the most important thing to understand, and that perhaps also helps with the reputation of marketing and communications. Because it's not about, you know, I can sell you everything because I'm doing marketing communications and I have these sales tricks. No, it's really about the strategy behind it, and it's about creating value. And only if we really create value do we have a chance to sell it. Otherwise you need a lot, a lot, a lot of budget to press something into the market that is not really needed there. And I think no coach has that budget.
Tobi
Yeah. And also doesn't want that, from an ethical standpoint, I guess.
Julika Franke
Exactly, exactly.
Tobi
Cool. Then let's cross that line that we have here in the middle of our equation and move down to the denominator. And there we have time delay, and effort and sacrifice, I guess on the client's end.
Julika Franke
Yeah. So time delay means, how much time passes until I get the dream outcome? And as I said, everything that is in the denominator makes the value smaller. The higher the amount in the denominator, so the longer the time that we need until we achieve the dream outcome, the smaller the perceived value from the client side, because everybody wants to have things now, right? So if you are a coach helping people to lose weight, they want to lose their 10 pounds not in 10 months but in 10 weeks. And so what's important here is to see, in what timeframes do people think? For example, in the B2C world especially, people are expecting very small amounts of time, as I said with weight loss, or with building muscles, or a six pack until the summer in six weeks, or stuff like that. When we are in the B2B world, that plays also an important role. I have many organizational development clients, consulting firms. There, obviously, the timeframes are a little bit more extended, and there we could even say, well, we will change your meeting culture within four days, after this four day workshop everything will be different. But then, what works in the B2B world very well is, maybe we solve a smaller
problem. So there is something, we won't go into too much detail, but there is something like an offer ladder. Small offers to begin with, and then you have mid-sized offers and then bigger offers. And maybe for the B2B world, sometimes a small offer is very good, because it's like a test phase, right? Instead of saying, oh, I'll change your whole organizational culture, you just say, well, your meetings will be more efficient by 20 percent when we do this two times four days of practice. Something like that.
Tobi
So basically you have different offers, so different sets of equations, and the smaller offers can go up in value if you can achieve them very quickly.
Julika Franke
Wow. Very well summarized.
Tobi
Yeah, making that time delay very small.
Julika Franke
Exactly. So, again, as with the perceived likelihood of achievement, the question for crafting the offer in reality, not in marketing, in reality, is: what can I do to help them decrease the time they need to do that? What makes it less time costly, let's say, until they get their result? And then we have the effort and sacrifice, and that is what they need to put in, in order to get the dream outcome. Because it's always something, it's time, it's money, it's
energy. So, for example, again, for losing 10 pounds, it's not only the pill. I mean, there are pills out there now, but normally it's not only the pill, it is really going to the gym, working out, changing your nutrition, et cetera. And here again, make a list of all the factors that might annoy your client. So really, before trying to solve it, try to understand what the hurdles are. They don't want to go shopping, for example, they don't want to go to the gym, they don't want to go four times per week to the gym. So, what is it that makes it a little bit more time, energy, money costly for them to come to the dream outcome? And then again,
creating ideas of how you can help them with that. So maybe your special coaching approach helps them, because you have special exercises, so they only need to go to the gym two times per week, not four times. You write them a list of groceries, maybe also individualized for their supermarket around the corner, which is very individualized. You maybe even have a checklist in the order of how the products are arranged in the supermarket. I mean, I'm now just fantasizing. And so it really is, can you help them with the struggles that they have? And that will increase the value enormously.
Tobi
Great. So delivering it fast, and also helping with all the hurdles that I as a client have to overcome on the road to my dream outcome. Let's actually dive into an example of a concrete coach, to summarize the whole value equation.
Julika Franke
Okay. Let's go for a relationship coach. And the relationship coach is positioned for people in a very concrete situation: should I stay or should I go? So that's the very concrete situation. And the problem that these people have is that they are thinking a lot about this question, should I stay or should I go? Sometimes they betray their partners and they don't know, is it worth leaving, or should they stay and work on the relationship? They are insecure about whether it is their personal problem or whether it's the partner. They're not sure what they can expect from a partner. And then the dream outcome for them is
being able to trust themselves. That is something that I worked out with my coachee. For other relationship coaches, the dream outcome for their client can be very different. But in this particular case we said that the most important thing for them is that they are able, again, to trust themselves, that they have means to communicate their wants and needs respectfully to their partner. So basically they have more clarity, they have self-confidence, they are less doubtful. That's the dream outcome, in short.
Tobi
I will know what I want.
Julika Franke
Yeah, exactly. And the perceived likelihood of achievement: do they trust this coach? Again, this is very much about how they perceive the coach, about the chemistry and everything that we just discussed. So that is individual for every prospect. One prospect can say, wow, this is the relationship coach I really want to work with. Another one says, well, who is that? No thanks. So that is really something that is more about a match.
Tobi
Chemistry and relatability.
Julika Franke
And as for the method, it is about creating a very relatable process. With this coach we created a process from this point A to the point B which is very well understandable. So, for example, we have different tool sets: we have NLP, we have systemic, we have hypnosis. And we can tell them, well, there is something that is more about your actual current situation, that is more the NLP part. And we have a systemic approach, which is more about your surroundings and the people around you. And then we have the hypnosis part, which is about the deeper levels of resolving some belief systems. And so we created this method, and the gold standard here is to help people understand why each approach is crucial to reaching point B. And that helps them enormously to understand, wow, so they really understood how this whole process works and they use A, B, C, this whole range. That increases enormously the perceived likelihood of achievement in their mind.
Tobi
Yeah, so they in a way see, okay, there's this person who has a toolbox, and those tools in that box, they seem really useful for my problem. It just makes sense. I hear it and it makes sense, and I have this vision, wow, I think that could work for me. Okay. How about time delay?
Julika Franke
I think first of all it's important to set a timeframe, and that goes for every coach. So it's not, okay, we do one session and then we decide if we do another session, and then we decide if we do another session. That creates uncertainty about how long this whole process is taking. What we want to do here is create a timeframe. For example, we say three months. And here is the problem: maybe the coach will say, I cannot guarantee that after three months we are really where I promised them to be. So this is a delicate adjustment to make. But just telling them, and that is also some mindset work, when you tell them, well, after three months you will be much, much further down the road, that is exactly what will happen. And if you tell them, oh, this will need six months, then it will need six months.
Tobi
Yeah.
So in a field where it's a lot about clarity and, in a way, decision making on the client's side, a deadline can also simply be a very useful tool to make that decision making easier. And when it comes to setting this timeframe, what I hear is also, it's not only about being fast, but it's also about expectation management in a way.
Julika Franke
Exactly. And I think structuring the process is very important for time delay management as well. So you will say, okay, in week one we are doing this, or in the first month, week wise it's a little difficult in this example, but for the first month we will lay the basis for everything else. Then in the second month we will dig deeper and do this, that and the other. And then in the third month, and so on. So also here, this perceived time delay decreases, basically.
Tobi
And then effort and sacrifice.
Julika Franke
Yeah, effort and sacrifice. So in this example, effort and sacrifice is, I need to have frightening conversations with my partner at some point, and I'm super afraid of that. So one part that I could add to the offer is maybe a cheat sheet, a mindset cheat sheet that I can read, with good affirmations, before a difficult conversation. That is one idea. Or another thing could be a guide on how to have this difficult conversation. Or I tell them, well, when you schedule this difficult conversation with your partner, we can make sure that we have a session right afterwards. Put that in the offer on the website, and you say, well, you get individual support after difficult conversations. And that is something that really brings them over that hurdle.
Tobi
I find it interesting to look at this, because having this value equation also comes with having a concrete offer.
If I look at the coaching industry, you can do this very non-directive, ICF aligned coaching, which I think most people in my bubble associate with coaching, and there it's often hard to make a concrete promise. How does this framework apply here?
Julika Franke
So I think the good news is that it applies as well. It's just that the problem that we are describing is less concrete. But still, we need to offer the client something, even on an abstract level, that is appealing to them. So, for example, a recent client of mine had the same thing, and she said, well, no, she doesn't want to be too narrowly positioned, she really wanted to be open to everybody, from children to elderly, really the whole range. And then we were digging a little bit into her own story, and what we found was that it was about resolving blockages and opening doors. And that is something that is very, very open, but still we have a good description of what kind of clients, or what kind of problem, she wants to work with. So, but it's on an abstract level. Having a blockage can be, I'm always yelling at my partner and I don't want that, I want to stop that. But having a blockage can also be, I always procrastinate and I want to stop that. So we really conceptualized it as: there is a behavior and I want to change it, and I try so much, but I'm not getting anywhere, can you please help me? And it's not, oh, I coach everything. No, it's resolving blockages in
behaviors.
Tobi
And what I hear is, in your example it's also, in a way, the story of the coach that is a promise in itself already.
Julika Franke
Yeah. And the best coaches, in my perception, are the ones who are aligned with who they are, with what they bring to the table, really from their story, from their educational background, but also their personal background. It really needs to be a match. And then they bring a certain energy to the table, and this whole thing works best if their energy matches the energy of the client.
Tobi
So it's all about knowing who I am, and then I can also show people who they can become.
Julika Franke
Yes, with a little add-on, in my opinion. It's not as narrow as, okay, I walked the path and I show you now how to walk the path. I think coaches are more than that. They bring more with them, this is why they have their education. They're not only experts because they have walked the path, they are experts also because they have a certain education, because they have personal or professional experience. Otherwise we are all coaches who are only coaching what we experienced in our lives before.
Tobi
Exactly. And the less I know about your problems, the more unbiased I can be.
Julika Franke
Exactly.
Tobi
On the one hand, does the client trust me as a coach, but also, does the client trust themselves? And that also doesn't require me as a coach to have any relevant experience on the path they are walking.
Julika Franke
Exactly. And I think there are some meta competencies that help enormously with this. If they have deep trust issues, with themselves, with the world, I think it's really hard to help these people. In the coaching world we are speaking about coachable and non-coachable clients. So I think there must be a certain degree of, okay, I'm open to change and I'm open to letting myself be guided by somebody. But then, if that openness exists, then me as a coach, I can totally help them to trust themselves more, that they can get there.
Tobi
Okay. If I want to now work out this value equation for me as a coach, what would be your recommendation for first steps I can take?
Julika Franke
So first of all, I would sit down with a piece of paper and ask myself, what do I bring to the table as a person? What values do I have? What successes did I already have with clients? What education do I have? So I really always start with the profile, because that determines in the end the target group, amongst other things. And that is like the foundation underneath the dream outcome, because otherwise I cannot define a dream outcome. But once I know which market I'm in, what I especially am able to do with coaches, what my values are, what makes me unique, then I can create this dream outcome. And I always take a piece of paper and then really draw a line and say, okay, this is A, this is B. And then say, okay, what do they experience before, and what do they ideally experience afterwards? And this sets the tone for the dream outcome, I'd say. And then really go around, as we did, and think these different things through. And again, make it written, really make lists. Okay, what inhibits my perfect coachee's success?
And then try to come up with answers: how can I help them with that?
Tobi
Yeah. So start with the dream outcome, and do all of this in a written format, working through the equation.
Julika Franke
Yeah.
Tobi
Awesome, thank you. And if I have now worked out my value equation, how do I know what value, what actual monetary value, I can ascribe to my offer?
Julika Franke
Yeah, so that is always the key question, obviously. I mean, this is a whole topic in itself, but the important thing to consider is what the person is willing to pay while they are at point A, if I told them this problem will disappear, or you will be at point B in X weeks, months, et cetera. And this is really important, because many coaches think, ah, yeah, a coaching hour is 100 euros, or is 120 euros, and this is what the market can bear, full stop. And sure, there are market things to be considered, we cannot free float without considering market topics. But still, we are doing this whole value equation thing exactly for that, for knowing what is really the pain point of our client. And so, again, the question is, what would somebody be willing to pay if I told them this problem will go away? Most of the time the value is much higher than if I just said, well, this is 10 coaching sessions and one session is 100 euros. And perhaps one more thing: this whole process that we are doing, in the end we oftentimes have many little things that we add to our offer. So we have sessions, we have checklists, we have maybe a spoken
meditation, we have a WhatsApp group. So we have many different parts of the offer. And that is something that Alex Hormozi is calling the category of one. So now it's not comparable to other offers. It's not, okay, one hour here costs 100 and here one hour costs 300 euros, why the hell? It's not comparable. It's my personal, my individual transformation journey that I'm offering my clients, and it costs X. And now please decide, is it as valuable for you or not? And yeah, this is how I would go about this.
Tobi
That's really cool. The category of one. Okay, thanks.
Outro
Tobi
That's it for today, so much for the value equation with Julika Franke. If you haven't yet, I'd encourage you to follow Julika's getting started advice: get out pen and paper, or a digital whiteboard, sketch the journey for your client from A to B, and then actually create your equation. Write down the equation as visible in our video: so dream outcome times likelihood of achievement, divided by time delay and effort. And then actually formulate this for your own
specific case. And if you're unsure how your offer actually looks, doing this becomes even more valuable. You simply do this exercise not once, but for the two or three different offers that you're considering, and then you compare where the value for your client actually comes out highest. If you do so, I'd be super curious how your experience is. Please share in the comments, or drop me an email at tobias@metafox.eu. Or, of course, do this whole exercise together with Julika. You can find her on julika-franke.de, or on LinkedIn, both in the show notes. We will be back here in two weeks, then making all of this offer and positioning work very personal, with Julika coaching me on my business role at metaFox and overcoming some mental blockers when it comes to our new coach training program. All of this for the start of the new year, in two weeks. I'm Tobi from metaFox, and I say thank you for being with me, with us, throughout this year. Happy
holidays, and all the best on your own journey as a coach. Cheers.