What Service/Program Formats Are Selling These Days?
Recently, I hosted my last private Q&A call for my course students. (My free monthly Q&A calls continue, open to everyone!)
A couple of questions came up about which offers to create next, and how to price them. Instead of answering right away, I asked everyone on the call…
Because here's what I've learned over time:
To find out what might sell, ask your audience what they're buying… and then offer your own version of that.
So I typed two questions into the chat:
- What have you paid for this year, in terms of coaching? Courses? A small group, or a big one? And why did you buy?
- Have you attended a paid in-person event this year? How much did you pay, and about how big was the event?
Last year I polled my audience about where soulpreneurs spend their time online, 229 people responded. This poll was… a lot smaller… only 10 people 😅
But these weren't random people. They're some of my most engaged students… people who bought a course and still come to live calls.
What they paid for this year:
Four of ten had joined a small group, whether a coaching group, a cohort, or a mastermind. When I asked what “small” meant, the answers were 5 to 10 people… a group of 7… and “30-ish.”
Five had paid for one-to-one time with a practitioner, from ongoing coaching to a single session exploring one very specific question.
Two had gone to retreats or live events. And a couple of purchases were smaller: a paid newsletter, and some booklets under $40.
What about paid courses? Barely came up. Two people mentioned a course or a class, and one of those classes "was not good."
And… why did they buy?
A few people named the topic.
But more often, the answer included the person. “A teacher I trust.” “My teacher.” One person typed “topic”… and then, a moment later, “and teacher :-)”
My favorite reason came from someone whose teachers have been showing up… doing their work for years.
Even the smallest purchases came from someone they already knew. One person described every single purchase by how they knew the seller: people they’d gotten to know through social media, a coach they knew well, practitioners they’d heard on podcasts or worked with before.
Others mentioned accountability, and the extras a leader threw in, like bonus one-to-one sessions.
What about in-person events?
Seven of the ten had gone to at least one paid in-person event this year.
Prices ranged from a few dollars up to about $1,500, for anything from two hours to a week. The groups were as small as 12 people, and as big as a large conference.
At the smaller end, one was $25 for a two-hour gathering with 12 people. A doable first step, if you've been curious about hosting an in-person gathering of your own.
Most were small. Five of the seven had about 50 people or fewer, and several were retreats lasting a few days. (One person called a 200-to-300-person conference “small”… compared to the other, big one they went to! 😄)
Two people keep going back, one to the same retreat every year, and another to a teacher they’ve followed for years.
And someone mentioned that many of the entrepreneurs they follow have moved from online courses to one-day or multi-day events, for 15 to 100 people.
Takeaways from this little poll…
The very first answer typed into the chat was “People are looking for connection.”
People are paying for connection with someone they trust.
That might be a small group… a one-to-one session… or a few days in a room with a teacher who keeps showing up.
What I said on the call — information is no longer valuable. Sad, but true… especially for a longtime course creator like me.
What people still pay for is help implementing, from a person they trust. That’s one of the reasons my own offers next year will focus on implementation.
Or they pay to meet the teacher live (either online or in-person) and to be around the community (kindred spirits!) that the teacher has gathered over time.
If you’re deciding what to offer next, it’s wise to make more room for live connection. That could be one-to-many, like a free-to-attend webinar… or one-to-one, like the conversations I describe in my blog post about Authentic Market Discovery. Come with a heart of love, and express it to the human being in front of you.
And before you build anything new, ask your own audience/network/clients what they’ve paid for this year. Then offer your own version of what they’re already buying / have bought.
Your turn…
I’d love to know your responses to the same questions:
- What have you paid for this year, to learn or grow? Coaching, a course, a small group, a big group, a one-to-one session? And what made you buy?
- Have you attended a paid in-person event this year? If so, about how much did you pay, how many people were there, and how long was the event?
Share your answers in the comments. Thank you! 🙏🏼🧡
Visit the comments section here (and feel free to add yours!)
