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Productization of Coaching Services for Scaling Coaching Businesses (with Alina Trigubenko)

Productization of Coaching Services for Scaling Coaching Businesses (with Alina Trigubenko)

Learn about the productization of your coaching practice in this presentation recording from the Great to Elite Online Summit for Coaching Businesses with Alina Trigubenko, founder and CEO of the operating platform for professional service providers - coaching, consulting and training businesses, Profi.io.

Why does productization matter for coaching businesses? 

Productization is the process of transforming coaching services into scalable and standardized product experiences. Throughout this presentation, I will refer to them as products. This process involves optimizing and measuring packaging.

How do you position your services and go-to-market strategy? How do you scale and bring your offerings to the market? Service delivery intelligence refers to how clients engage with your offerings and perceive the full spectrum of services you provide, enabling upselling and continuous reselling to your existing client base.

Technology enablement is crucial in 2023. Productization and digitalization are core strategies for software-as-a-service (SaaS) and care-as-a-service businesses, also known as professional services businesses.

The productization pillars for coaching businesses

The importance of packaging for coaching businesses

We suggest using a formula to clearly define your value proposition in your packaging exercise. Refining your messaging and packaging results in a significant increase in conversions. Clear differentiation and a well-structured product value proposition are key to standing out. Hyper-personalized and structured value propositions make it easier to scale your offering. 

Go-to-market latest best practices

These practices, derived from the SaaS industry, have shown significant improvements in our clients' coaching businesses and firms. There is a correlation between growth strategies in the software and professional services industries.

  • PLG - product-led-growth 

Before converting clients to the professional services industry, providing a free or premium product is important. This allows clients to understand your specialty, methodology, and approach. Once they grasp the value, monetization becomes easier, resulting in a better return on investment.

Offering free services like recorded content, webinars, or a community can improve ROI compared to immediately selling to clients who haven't grasped your service's essence. Engaging clients and guiding them to the "aha" moment establishes habit loops, especially in health coaching businesses. Helping clients build habits with minimal investment while scaling the premium product facilitates easier monetization and potential expansion.

The business expansion involves viral elements. Approximately 93% of our customers benefit from robust referral strategies. After clients experience the full value of your offerings, encourage them to share positive experiences with peers, bringing in new clients.

The four elements of product-led-growth for coaches
  • PLS -  product-led-sales

This is a highly effective strategy for selling high-ticket contracts, particularly those valued at $10,000 or $15,000. Involving skilled salespeople who can articulate the product's value and tailor the pitch to client needs is crucial at this stage. Salespeople play a role in the monetization stage.

Additionally, when targeting the corporate sector, it can be beneficial to engage with employees first and then sell to HR and management roles. Offering services at a company level allows you to demonstrate proof of concept through employee engagement. Many clients have successfully employed this approach.

The best practice for product-led-sales
  • User-generated content 

One of the best marketing practices is user-generated content. Content generated by team members, coaches, and clients generates eight times more engagement. Potential clients prefer engaging with content created by coaches and clients rather than faceless brand content.

Alina trigubenko’s quote about the importance of user-generated content for coaching businesses

Focusing on generating continuous revenue from existing clients is more cost-effective than acquiring new traffic and clients. Successful companies like Glossier generate 90% of their revenue from repeat customers. This principle applies to coaching businesses as well. Producing ongoing content with your team reduces acquisition costs and creates a growth loop.

Statistics about why user-generated content is important

The essential elements of  a successful branded community

1. Shared values and purpose

During customer conversations and sales discussions, the topic of the community frequently arises. After the onset of Covid, people began seeking communities as a natural desire for belonging. Recognizing this trend, we partnered with a company specializing in community technology and building for businesses. Based on our research, we have identified the following best practices.

Firstly, clearly communicate the purpose and reason behind Uniting Together. The "why" must be upfront and evident to encourage the community to invest their time in this endeavor.

2. Value consumption 

Sometimes, this holds true for software companies too. SurveyMonkey tripled its conversions by changing the color of the banner promoting its new offering. Consider the potential impact of making it convenient to access all your services and positioning them intuitively within the user or client journey.

3. Simple and incentivized value creation

This relates to user-generated content. The more clients engage with you, the more they contribute to creating a growth loop. Positive feedback from peers becomes valuable for potential clients. By focusing on user-generated content and fostering a continuous growth loop, you can maximize its impact.

4. Clearly define the rewards 

It revolves around the behavior we endorse, as what we support gets amplified. Ensure your values align with the actions you reward. Focusing on values-centric behavior positively influences the entire community.

5. Accountability 

In coaching and behavior change programs, peer-to-peer partnership and accountability play a crucial role. These elements enhance retention, engagement, and activation rates in group-based coaching.

6.Mindfulness in leadership 

Data and conversations support the value of peer-to-peer interactions. It is an important aspect to consider.

7. Objective governance and evolution

Allowing your community members to shape the direction and directly influence the way you shape your services through their feedback is crucial.

Seven essential elements of building a branded community as a coaching business

Service delivery intelligence for coaching businesses

Service delivery intelligence is crucial for scaling your business. Our team ensures a cohesive experience for your clients, providing visibility, control, and accountability over your coaches. Unlocking more opportunities allows effective scaling of your organization. Consider these key factors when scaling your business.

What is your service delivery process like? 

Comprehending and managing service delivery with multiple tools can be challenging. Data shows that scaling organizations with five to 25 professional seats or coaches use an average of 24 different tools. An optimized one-stop-shop operating platform addresses these challenges by providing a clear visualization of your service delivery process. This facilitates coach training and ensures a streamlined service delivery for clients, improving their overall experience. 

Roles and permissions 

When servicing the corporate sector, consider compliance and control over roles and permissions. This ensures coaches access to relevant information and allows data management during coach offboarding. Compliance requires careful attention and integrated tools can help navigate complexities. Failure to address compliance issues risks revenue loss and significant risks in corporate and enterprise sectors.

Goals and progress tracking 

It is essential to make it intuitive for clients to track goals, monitor habit formation progress, and navigate within your service.

Billing and payments 

Clients often experience revenue loss due to providing services without receiving payment or lacking proper notifications regarding unpaid payments from their dashboards or admins.

Shared forms and templates 

Clients are now tech-savvy users, expecting a high level of digital experience when engaging with any service. Companies like Uber have set the baseline, and as service providers, we need to keep up. This involves considering user experience, complete digital enablement flow, and shared forms and templates. Sharing standardized products, forms, and templates with coaches facilitates cohesive brand engagement and service interaction for clients.

Onboarding, activation and engagement for coaches and clients 

One of the biggest opportunities for professional services companies to improve lies in addressing client confusion about how to engage with Zoom. Optimizing onboarding, activation, and engagement flows can lead to significant revenue improvement, potentially tripling or achieving a 10X increase.

Elements of service delivery intelligence for coaching businesses

Open APIs inability and reporting 

Our clients before Profi lost six major enterprise Fortune 500 accounts due to the inability to provide real-time reporting to HR and clients. As you onboard clients, consider providing visibility into account, client, and team member activities. In the current digital landscape, where communication tools are prevalent, clients expect this visibility. They also want to understand the ROI of their engagement.

Team member workflows and process templates 

Templatizing and standardizing the experience is important for coaches and clients in your organization.

Client research trends

One of the most interesting trends is the question of what clients see and their overall experience. Here are some intriguing trends in this regard.

  • Security. In a zero-trust environment, clients are increasingly demanding secure solutions and data protection from coaching vendors. Implementing security measures in the user journey can lead to significant increases in conversion rates. Prioritizing security can greatly enhance activation and engagement.
  • ROI in reporting. Providing on-demand access to data is essential for attracting more clients and achieving higher customer satisfaction rates. This trend reflects people's expectations for immediate access to information.
  • Micro and P2P learning. Hybrid learning programs with human involvement have a significantly higher completion rate of 97% compared to pre-recorded content. 
  • Professional experience. Clients expect a streamlined and professional all-in-one digital experience when engaging with coaches. Frustration and a decline in value occur when this expectation is not met. 

Digitally optimized experiences. High-ticket clients anticipate a top-notch digital experience throughout their engagement with coaching services.

Client research trends

Key takeaways from this presentation

Adopting a product-thinking mindset in coaching improves client experience and promotes growth. Marketing-driven traffic is increasingly costly, so consider implementing a product-led growth approach. 

Prioritize providing value, engaging with the audience, and then selling your coaching services to achieve a return on investment and ensure scalability, consistent quality, streamlined processes, and differentiation. Stay updated on SaaS industry trends as they are effective and align with the new expectations.

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